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TREATISE 



ON THE CONDUCT OF THE 



UNDERSTANDS G. 



JOHN LOCKE, GENT. 



TO WHICH IS NOW ADDED 



A SKETCH OF HIS LIFE. 



A NEW EDITION. 



HARTFORD: 
PUBLISHED BY S. ANDRUS & SON. 

1851. 



V 



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B.oio. 

AUG 11 i90*» 



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LIFE OF LOCKE. 4* 



John Locke ; one of the greatest philosophers and most 
valuable writers who have adorned this country, was born 
at Wrington, in Somersetshire, on the twenty-ninth of Au- 
gust, 1032. His father, who had been bred to the law, 
acted in the capacity of steward, or court-keeper, to colonel 
Alexander Popham 3 and, upon the breaking out of the civil 
war, became a captain in the service of the parliament. 
He was a gentleman of strict probity and economy, and 
possessed of a handsome fortune 5 but, as it came much 
impaired into the hands of his son, it was probably injured 
through the misfortunes of the times. However, he took 
great pains in his son ? s education, and though while he was 
a child he behaved towards him with great distance and 
severity, yet as he grew up, he treated him with more 
familiarity, till at length they lived together rather as friends, 
than as two persons, one of whom might justly claim respect 
from the other. When he was of a proper age, young 
Locke was sent to Westminster school, where he continued 
till the year 1651 5 when he was entered a student of 
Christ church-college, in the university of Oxford. Here 
he so greatly distinguished himself by his application and 
proficiency, that he was considered to be the most inge- 
nious young man in the college. But, though he gained such 
reputation in the university, he was afterwards often heard 
to complain of the little satisfaction which he had found 
in the method of study which had been prescribed to him, 
and of the little service which it had afforded him, in en- 
lightening and enlarging his mind, or in making him more 
exact in his reasonings. The first books which gave him 
a relish for the study of philosophy, were the writings of 
Des Cartes ; for though he did not approve of all his notions, 
yet he found that he wrote with great perspicuity. Having 
taken his degree of B. A. in 1655, and that of M. A. in 
1G58, Mr. Locke for some time closely applied himself to 
the study of physic, going through the usual courses prepar- 
atory to the practice j and it is said that he got some busi- 



IV LIFE OF LOCKE. 

ness in that profession at Oxford. So great was the deli- 
cacy of his constitution, however, that he was not capable 
of a laborious application to the medical art ; and it is not 
improbable that his principal motive in studying* it was, that 
he mig;ht be qualified, when necessary, to act as his own 
physician. In the year 1664, he accepted of an offer to go 
abroad, in the capacity of secretary to sir William Swan, 
who was appointed envoy from king Charles II. to the 
elector of Brandenburg, and some other German princes 
but returning to England again within less than a year, he 
resumed his studies at Oxford with renewed vigour, and 
applied himself particularly to natural philosophy. While 
he was at Oxford in 1666/ an accident introduced him to 
the acquaintance of lord Ashley, afterwards earl of Shaftes- 
bury, which resulted in his inviting Mr. Locke to his house ; 
and, in the year 1667, he prevailed on him to take up his 
residence with him atLunning-hill. 

By his acquaintance with this nobleman, Mr. Locke was 
introduced to the conversation of the duke of Buckingham, 
the earl of Halifax, and other of the most eminent persons 
of that age, who were all charmed with his conversation. 
In the year 1668, at the request of the earl and countess of 
Northumberland, Mr. Locke accompanied them in a tour to 
France, and staid in that country with-the countess, while the 
earl went towards Italy, with an intention of visiting Rome. 
But this nobleman dying on his journey at Turin, the countess 
came back to England sooner than was at first designed, and 
Mr. Locke with her, who continued to reside, as before, at 
lord Ashley's. That nobleman, who was then chancellor of 
the exchequer, having, in conjunction with other lords, ob- 
tained a grant of Carolina, employed Mr. Locke to draw up 
the fundamental constitutions of that province. In exe- 
cuting this task, our author had formed articles relative to 
religion, and public worship, on those liberal and enlarged 
principles of toleration, which were agreeable to the senti- 
ments of his enlightened mind 5 but some of the clergy, 
jealous of such provisions as might prove an obstacle to 
their ascendency, expressed their disapprobation of them, 
and procured an additional article to be inserted, securing 
the countenance and support of tne state only to the exer- 
cise of religion according to the discipline of the established 
church. Mr. Locke still retained his student's place at 
Christ-church, and made frequent visits to Oxford, for the 



LIFE OF LOCKE. V 

sake of consulting books in the prosecution of his studies, 
and for the benefit of change of air. At lord Ashley's, he 
inspected the education of his lordship's only son, who was 
then about sixteen years of age ; and executed that prov- 
ince with the greatest care, and to the entire satisfaction of 
his noble patron. As the young lord was but of a weakly 
constitution, his father thought proper to marry him early, 
lest the family should become extinct by his death. And, 
since he was too young, and had too little experience to 
choose a wife for himself, and lord Ashley had the highest 
opinion of Mr. Locke's judgment, as well as the greatest 
confidence in his integrity, he desired him to make a suita- 
ble choice for his son. This was a difficult and delicate 
task ; for though lord Ashley did not insist on a great for- 
tune for his son, yet he would have him marry a lady of 
a good family, an agreeable temper, a fine person, and, 
above all, of good education and good understanding, 
whose conduct would be very different from that of the gen- 
erality of court ladies. Notwithstanding the difficulties at- 
tending such a commission, Mr. Locke undertook it, and 
executed it very happily. The eldest son by this marriage, 
afterwards the" noble author of the Characteristics, was 
committed to the care of Mr. Locke in his education, and 

fave evidence to the world of the master-hand which had 
irected and guided his genius. 

In 1670, and in the following year, Mr. Locke began to form 
the plan of his Essay on the Human Understanding, at the 
earnest request of some of his friends, who were accustomed 
to meet in his chamber, for the purpose of conversing on 
philosophical subjects ; but the employments and avocations 
which were found for him by his patron would not then suf- 
fer him to make any great progress in that work. About 
this time, it is supposed, he was made fellow of the Royal 
Society. In 1672, lord Ashley, having been created earl 
of Shaftesbury, and raised to the dignity of lord high chan- 
cellor of England, appointed Mr. Locke secretary of the 
presentations 5 but he held that place only till the end of 
the following year, when the earl was obliged to resign the 
great seal. Trlis dismissal was followed by that of Mr. 
Locke, to whom the earl had communicated his most secret 
affairs, and who contributed towards the publication of 
some treatises, which were intended to excite the nation to 
watch the conduct of the Roman Catholics, and to oppose 



VI LIFE OF LOCKE. 

the arbitrary designs of the court. After this, his lordship, 
who was still president of the board of trade, appointed Mr. 
Locke secretary to the same, which office he retained not 
long", the commission being 1 dissolved in the year 1674. In 
the following year, he was admitted to the degree of bache- 
lor of physic j and it appears that he continued to prosecute 
this study, and to keep up his acquaintance with several of 
the faculty. In what reputation he was held by some of 
the most eminent of them, we may judge from the testimo- 
nial that was given of him by the celebrated Dr. Sydenham, 
in his book, entitled, Observationes Medicae circa Morbo- 
rum Acutorum Historiam et Curationem, &c. " You know, 
likewise, 77 says he, " how much my method has been 
approved of by a person who has examined it to the bottom, 
and who is our common friend : I mean Mr. John Locke, 
who, if we consider his genius and penetrating and exact 
judgment, or the strictness of his morals, has scarcely any 
superior, and few equals now living." In the summer of 
1675, Mr. Locke, being apprehensive of a consumption, 
travelled into France, and resided for some time at Mont- 
pellier, where he became acquainted with Mr. Thomas 
Herbert, afterwards earl of Pembroke, to whom he com- 
municated his design of writing- his Essay on Human 
Understanding. From Montpellier he went to Paris, where 
he contracted a friendship with M. Justel, the celebrated 
civilian, whose house was at that time the place of resort 
for men of letters 5 and where a familiarity commenced 
between him and several other persons of eminent learning-. 
In 1679, the earl of Shaftesbury > being again restored to 
favour at court, and made president of the council, sent to 
request that Mr. Locke would return to England, which he 
accordingly did. Within six months, however, that noble- 
man was again displaced, for refusing his concurrence with 
the designs of the court, which aimed at the establishment 
of popery and arbitrary power 5 and, in 1682, he was 
obliged to retire to Holland, to avoid a prosecution for 
high treason, on account of pretended crimes of which he 
was accused. Mr. Locke remained steadily attached to 
his patron, following him into Holland 5 and upon his lord- 
ship's death, which happened soon afterwards, he did not 
think it safe to return to England, where his intima'e con- 
nexion with lord Shaftesbury had created him some 
powerful and malignant enemies. Before he had been a 



LIFE OF LOCKE. Vll 

year in Holland, he was accused at the English court of 
being the author of certain tracts which had been published 
against the government ; and, notwithstanding that another 
person was soon afterwards discovered to be the writer of 
them, yet as he was observed to join in company at the 
Hague with several Englishmen who were the avowed 
enemies of the system of politics on which the English 
court now acted, information of this circumstance was con- 
veyed to the earl of Sunderland, then secretary of state. 
This intelligence lord Sunderland communicated to the 
king, who immediately ordered that bishop Fell, then dean 
of Christ-church, should receive his express command to 
eject Mr. Locke from his student's place, which the bishop 
executed accordingly. After this violent procedure of the 
court against him in England, he thought it prudent to 
remain in Holland, where he was at the accession of king 
James II. Soon after that event, William Penn, the famous 
quaker, who had known Mr. Locke at the university, used 
his interest with the king to procure a pardon for him ; and 
.vould have obtained it had not Mr. Locke declined the 
acceptance of such an offer, nobly observing, that he had 
no occasion for a pardon, since he had not been guilty of 
any crime. 

In the year 1685 ; when the duke of Monmouth and his 
party were making ] no para lions in Holland for his rasa 
and unfortunate enterprise, the English envoy at the Hague 
demanded that Mr. Locke, with several others, should be 
delivered up to him, on suspicion of his being engaged in 
that undertaking. And though this suspicion was not on y 
groundless, but without even a shadow of probability, it 
obliged him to lie concealed nearly twelve months, till it 
was sufficiently known Hint he had no concern whatever in 
that business. Towards the latter end of the year 1686, 
he appeared again in public; and in the following year 
formed a literary society at Amsterdam, of which Limborch, 
Le Clerc, and other learned men, were members, who met 
together weekly for conversation upon subjects of universal 
learning. About the end of the year 1687, our author 
finished the composition of his great work, the Essay con- 
cerning Human Understanding, which had been the principal 
object of his attention for some years ; and that the public 
might be apprised of the outlines of his plan, he made an 
abridgment of it himself, which his friend Le Clerc trans- 



Vlll LIFE OF LOCKE. 

lated into French, and inserted in one of his "Biblio- 
theques." This abridgment was so highly approved of by 
all thinking 1 persons, and sincere lovers of truth, that they 
expressed the strongest desire to see the whole work. 
During the time of his concealment, he wrote his first 
Letter concerning Toleration, in Latin, which was first 
printed at Gouda, in 1689, under the title of Epistola de 
Tolerantia, &c. 12mo. This excellent performance, which 
has ever since been held in the highest esteem by the best 
judges, was translated into Dutch and French, in the same 
year, and was also printed in English, in 4to. Before this 
work made its appearance, the happy Revolution in 1688, 
effected by the courage and good conduct of the prince of 
Orange, opened the way for Mr. Locke's return to his 
native country ; whither he came in the fleet which con- 
veyed the princess of Orange. After public liberty had 
been restored, our author thought it proper to assert his 
own private rights ; and therefore put in his claim to the 
student's place in Christ-church, of which he had been 
unjustly deprived. Finding, however, that the society 
resisted his pretensions, on the plea that their proceedings 
had been conformable to their statutes, and that they could 
not be prevailed upon to dispossess the person who had 
been elected in his room, he desisted from his claim. It is 
true, that they made him an offer of being admitted a 
supernumerary student ; but, as his sole motive in endeav- 
ouring to procure his restoration was, that such a measure 
might proclaim the injustice of the mandate for his ejection, 
he did not think proper to accept it. As Mr. Locke was 
justly considered to be a sufferer for the principles of the 
devolution, he might without much difficulty have obtained 
some very considerable post; but he contented himself 
with that of commissioner of appeals, worth about £200 
per annum. In July, 1689, he wrote a letter to his friend 
Limborch, with whom he frequently corresponded, in which 
he took occasion to speak of the act of toleration, which 
had then just passed, and at which he expressed his satis- 
faction; though he at the same time intimated, that he 
considered it to be defective, and not sufficiently compre- 
hensive. " I doubt not," says he, " but you have already 
heard, that toleration is at length established among us by 
law; not, however, perhaps, with that latitude which you, 
and such as you, true Christians, devoid of envy and ambi- 



LIFE OF LOCKE. IX 

tion, would have wished. But it is somewhat to have 
proceeded thus far. And 1 hope these beginnings are the 
foundations of liberty and peace 7 which shall hereafter be 
established in the church of Christ." 

About this time, Mr. Locke had an offer to go abroad in 
a public character 3 and it was left to his choice whether 
he would be envoy at the court of the emperor, the elector 
of Brandenburg, or any other, where he thought that the 
air would best agree with him; but he declined it on 
account of the infirm state of his health. In the year 1690, 
he published his celebrated Essay concerning Human Un- 
derstanding, in folio; a work which has made the author's 
name immortal, and does honour to our country ; which an 
eminent and learned writer has styled, u one of the noblest, 
the usefulest, the most original books the world ever saw. 7 ' 
But, notwithstanding its extraordinary merit, it gave great 
offence to many people at the first publication, and was 
attacked by various writers, most of whose names are now 
forgotten. It was even proposed, at a meeting of the 
heads of houses of the university of Oxford, to censure and 
discourage the reading of it 3 and, after various debates 
among themselves, it was concluded, that each head of a 
house should endeavour to prevent it from being- read in 
his college. They were afraid of the light which it poured 
in upon the minds of men. But all their efforts were in 
vain 5 as were also the attacks of its various opponents on 
the reputation either of the work or its author, which con- 
tinued daily to increase in every part of Europe. It was 
translated into French and Latin ; and the fourth in English, 
with alterations and additions, was printed in the year 
1700 3 since which time it has past through a vast number of 
editions. In the year 1690, Mr. Locke published his IVo 
Treatises on Government, 8vo. — Those valuable treatises, 
which are some of the best extant on the subject, in any 
language, are employed in refuting and overturning sir 
Robert Filmer's false principles, and in pointing out the 
true origin, extent, and end of civil government. About 
this time, the coin of the kingdom was in a very bad state, 
owing to its having been so much clipped, that it wanted 
above a third of the standard weight. The magnitude of 
this evil, and the mischiefs whicli it threatened, having 
engaged the serious consideration of parliament, Mr. Locke, 
with the view of assisting those who were at the head of 



X LIFE OF LOCKE. 

affairs to form a right understanding of this matter, and to 
excite them to rectify such shameful abuse, printed Some 
Considerations of the Consequences of lowering 1 the Interest, 
and raising- the Value of Money, 1691, 8vo. Afterwards 
he published some other small pieces on the same subject ; 
by which he convinced the world, that he was as able to rea- 
son on trade and business, as on the most abstract parts of 
science. These writings occasioned his being frequently 
consulted by the ministry, relative to the new coinage of 
silver, and other topics. Willi the earl of Pembroke, then 
lord keeper of the privy seal, he was for some time accus- 
tomed to hold weekly conferences ; and when the air of 
London began to affect his lungs, he sometimes went to the 
earl of Peterborough's seat, near Fulham, where he always 
met with the most friendly reception. He was afterwards, 
however, obliged to quit London entirely, at least during 
the winter season, and to remove to some place at a greater 
distance. He had frequently paid visits to sir Francis 
Masham, at Oates, in Essex, about twenty miles from 
London, where he found that the air agreed admirably well 
with his constitution, and where he also enjoj'ed the most 
delightful society. We may imagine, therefore, that he 
was persuaded, without much difficulty, to accept of an 
offer which sir Francis made, to give him apartments in his 
house, where he might settle during the remainder of his 
life. Here he was received upon his own terms, that he 
might have his entire liberty, and look upon himself as at 
his own house 5 and here he chiefly pursued his future 
studies, being seldom absent, because the air of London 
grew more and more troublesome to him. 

In 1693, Mr. Locke published his Thoughts concerning 
Education, 8vo. which he greatly improved in subsequent 
editions. In 1695, king William, who knew how to appre- 
ciate his abilities for serving the public, appointed him one 
of the commissioners of trade and plantations ; which 
obliged him to reside more in London than he had done 
for some time past. In the same year, he published his 
excellent treatise, entitled The Reasonableness of Chris- 
tianity, as delivered in the Scriptures, 8vo. which was 
written, it is said, in order to promote the scheme which 
king William had so much at heart, of a compromise with 
the dissenters. 

The asthmatic complaint, to which Mr. Locke had been 



LIFE OF LOCKE. XI 

long subject increasing with his years, began now to subdue 
his constitution, and rendered him very infirm. He there- 
fore, determined to resign his post of commissioner of trade 
and plantations 5 but he acquainted none of his friends with 
his design, till he had given up his commission into the 
king's own hand. . His majesty was very unwilling to 
receive it, and told our author, that he would be well 
pleased with his continuance in that office, though he should 
give little or no attendance 5 for that he did not desire him 
to stay in town one day to the injury of his health. But 
Mr. Locke told the king, that he could not in conscience 
hold a place to which a considerable salary was annexed, 
without discharging the duties of it 3 upon which the king 
reluctantly accepted his resignation. Mr. Locke's behaviour 
in this instance discovered such a degree ot integrity and 
virtue, as reflects more honour on his character than his 
extraordinary intellectual endowments. His majesty enter 
tained a great esteem for him, and would sometimes desire 
his attendance, in order to consult with him on public affairs 
and to know his sentiments of things. From this time, Mr. 
Locke continued altogether at Oates, in which agreeable 
retirement he applied himself wholly to the study of the 
sacred Scriptures. In this employment he found so much 
pleasure, that he regretted his not having devoted more of 
his time to it in the former part of his lite. And his great 
regard for the sacred writings appears from his answer to a 
relation, who had inquired of him what was the shortest and 
surest way for a young gentleman to attain a true knowl- 
edge of the Christian religion. " Let him study," said 
Mr. Locke, "the holy Scripture, especially in the New 
Testament. Therein are contained the words of eternal 
life. It has God for its author 3 salvation for its end 5 and 
truth, without any mixture of error, for its matter." Mr. 
Locke now found his asthmatic disorder growing extremely 
troublesome, though it did not prevent him from enjoying 
great cheerfulness of mind. In this situation, his sufferings 
were greatly alleviated by the kind attention and agreeable 
conversation of the accomplished lady Masham, who was 
the daughter of the learned Dr. Cudworth 3 as this lady 
and Mr. Locke had a great esteem and friendship for each 
other. At the commencement of the summer of the year 
1703, a season which, in former years, had always restored 
him some degrees of strength, he perceived that it haa 



Xll LIFE OF LOCKE. 

begun to fail him more remarkably than ever. This con- 
vinced him that his dissolution was at no great distance; 
and he often spoke of it himself, but always with great com- 
posure 5 while he omitted none of the precautions which, 
from his skill in physic , he knew had a tendency to prolong 
his life. At length his legs began to swell 5 and that 
swelling 1 increasing every day, his strength visibly dimin- 
ished. He therefore prepared to take leave of the world, 
deeply impressed with a sense of God's manifold blessings 
to him, which he took delight in recounting to his friends, 
and full of a sincere resignation to the divine will, and of 
firm hopes in the promises of future life. As he had been 
incapable for a considerable time of going to church, he 
thought proper to receive the sacrament at home 5 and two 
of his friends communicating with him, as soon as the 
ceremony was finished, he told the minister, "that he was 
in perfect charity with all men, and in a sincere communion 
with the church of Christ, by what name soever it might be 
distinguished." He lived some months after this 3 which 
time he spent in acts of piety and devotion. On the day 
before his death, lady Masham being alone with him, and 
sitting by his bed-side, he exhorted her to regard this world 
only as a state of preparation for a better ; adding " that 
he had lived long enough, and that he thanked God he had 
enjoyed a happy life 5 but that, after all, he looked upon 
this life to be nothing but vanity." He had no rest that 
night, and resolved to try to rise on the following morning, 
which he did, and was carried into his study, where he was 
placed in an easy chair, and slept for a considerable time 
Seeming a little refreshed, he would be dressed as he used 
to be, and observing lady Masham reading to herself in the 
Psalms while he was dressing, he requested her to read 
aloud. She did so, and he appeared very attentive, till, 
feeling the approach of death, he desired her to break off, 
and in a few minutes expired, on the twenty-eighth of 
October, 1704, in the seventy-third year of his age. He 
was interred in the church of Oates, where there is a decent 
monument erected to his memory, with a modest inscription 
in Latin, written by himself. 



X1U 



CONTENTS 



Introduction, 3 

Parts, 6 

Reasoning, 7 

Practice and Habits, 16 

Ideas, 19 

Principles, 20 

Mathematics, 29 

Religion, 34 

Ideas, 36 

Indifferency, 41 

Examine, 41 

Observations, 46 

Bias, 48 

Arguments, 49 

Haste, 51 

Desultory, 53 

•Smattering, 54 

Universality, 54 

Reading, 58 

Intermediate Principles, 61 

Partiality, G2 

Theology, 63 

Partiality, 65 

Haste, 75 

Anticipation, 78 

Resignation 79 



XIV CONTENTS. 

Practice; 80 

Words, 53 

Wandering, • 85 

Distinction, 87 

Similes, 93 

Assent, 95 

Indifferency, 97 

Question, 104 

Perseverance, 104 

Presumption, 105 

Despondency, 106 

Analogy, 110 

Association, Ill 

Fallacies, 115 

Fundamental Verities, 120 

Bottoming, 122 

Transferring of Thoughts, 123 



LOCKE'S ESSAY 

OF THE 

CONDUCT OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 



Quid tarn teinerarium tamque indig-num sapientis gra*n« 
tate atque constantia, quam aut falsum sontire, aut quod non 
satis explorate perceptum sit et cognitum sine uHa dubitation« 
defendere ? Cic. de Natura Deorum, lib. 1. 

§ 1". Introduction. 

The last resort a man has recourse to in 
the conduct of himself, is his understanding : 
for though we distinguish the faculties of the 
mind, and give the supreme command to the 
will, as to an agent ; yet the truth is, the 
man who is the agent determines himself to 
this or that voluntary action, upon some pre- 
cedent knowledge, or appearance of knowl- 
edge in the understanding. No man ever 
sets himself about any thing but upon some 
view or other, which serves him for a reason 
for what he does : and whatsoever faculties 
he employs, the understanding with such light 
as it has, well or ill informed, constantly 
leads ; and by that light, true or false, all hi*? 
operative powers are directed. The will it- 
self, how absolute and uncontrollable soever k- 
may be thought, never fails in its obedience 
to the dictates of the understanding. Tern- 



4 OF THE CONDUCT 

pies have their sacred images, and we see 
what influence they have always had over a 
great part of mankind. But in truth, the 
ideas and images in men's minds are the in- 
visible powers that constantly govern them ; 
and to these they all universally pay a ready 
submission. It is, therefore, of the highest 
concernment, that great care should be taken 
of the understanding, to conduct it right in 
the search of knowledge, and in the judg- 
ments it makes. 

The logic now in use, has so long possessed 
the chair, as the only art taught in the schools 
for the direction of the mind in the study of 
the arts and sciences, that it would perhaps 
be thought an affectation of novelty to suspect, 
that rules, that have served the learned world 
these two or three thousand years, and which 
without any complaint of defects, the learned 
have rested in, are not sufficient to guide the 
understanding. — And I should not doubt but 
this attempt would be censured as vanity or 
presumption, did not the great lord Verulam's 
authority justify it: who, not servilely thinking 
learning could not be advanced beyond what 
it was, because for many ages it had not been, 
did not rest in the lazy approbation and ap- 
plause of what was, because it was ; but en- 
larged his mind to what it might be. In his 
preface to his Novum Organum concerning lo- 
gic, he pronounces thus: Qui summas dialectical 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 5 

partes tribuerunt, alque inde jidissima scientiis 
prcesidia comparari pidarunt, verissime et optime 
viderunt intellectum humanum sibi permissum me- 
rito suspectum esse debere. Verum injirmior om- 
nino est malo medicina ; nee ipsa mail expers. 
Siquidem dialedica, quce recepta est, licet ad civi- 
lia et artes, quce in sermone et opinione positce 
sunt, reclissime adhibeatur ; naturce tamen sub- 
lilitalem longo intervallo non attingit, et pren- 
sando quod non capit, ad errores potius slabilien- 
dos et quasi jigendos, quam ad viam veritaii 
aperiendam valuit. 

u They, says he, who attributed so much to 
logic, perceived very well and truly, that it 
was not safe to trust the understanding to it- 
self, without the guard of any rules. But 
the remedy reached not the evil, but became 
a part of it : for the logic which took place, 
though it might do well enough in civil affairs, 
and the arts which consisted in talk and opin- 
ion ; yet comes very far short of subtilty in 
the real performances of nature, and catch- 
ing at what it cannot reach, has served to 
confirm and establish errors, rather than to 
open a way to truth." And therefore a little 
after he says, " That it is absolutely necessary 
that a better and perfecter use and employ- 
ment of the mind and understanding should 
be introduced." " Necessamo requirelur ut me- 
lior et perfectior mentis et intellectus humani uses 
et adoperatio introducatur" 
B 



6 OF THE CONDUCT 

§ 2. Parts. 

There is, it is visible, great variety in men's 
understandings, and their natural constitutions 
put so wide a difference between some men 
in this respect, that art and industry would 
never be able to master ; and their very na- 
tures seem to want a foundation to raise on it 

that which other men easily attain unto 

Amongst men of equal education there is 
great inequality of parts. And the woods of 
America, as well as the schools of Athens, 
produce men of several abilities in the same 
kind. Though this be so, yet I imagine most 
men come very short of what they might attain 
unto in their several degrees by a neglect of 
their understandings. A few rules of logic 
are thought sufficient in this case for those 
who pretend to the highest improvement ; 
whereas, I think there are a great many na- 
tural defects in the understanding capable of 
amendment, which are overlooked and wholly 
neglected. And it is easy to perceive that 
men are guilty of a great many faults in the 
exercise and improvement of this faculty of 
the mind, which hinder them in their progress, 
and keep them in ignorance and error all 
their lives. Some of them I shall take notice 
of, and endeavour to point out proper reme- 
dies for in the following discourse. 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 7 

§ 3. Reasoning 

Besides the want of determined ideas, and 
of sagacity, and exercise in finding out, and 
laying in order intermediate ideas, there 
are three miscarriages that men are guilty of 
in reference to their reason, whereby this 
faculty is hindered in them from that service 
it might do and was designed for. And he 
that reflects upon the actions and discourses of 
mankind, will find their defects in this kind 
very frequent, and very observable. 

1. The first is of those who seldom reason 
at all, but do and think according to the ex- 
ample of others, whether parents, neighbours, 
ministers, or w r ho else they are pleased to 
make choice of to have an implicit faith in, 
for the saving of themselves the pains and 
trouble of thinking and examining for them- 
selves. 

2. The second is of those who put passion 
in the place of reason, and being resolved 
that shall govern their actions and arguments, 
neither use their own, nor hearken to other 
people's reason, any farther than it suits their 
humour, interest, or party ; and these one 
may observe commonly content themselves 
with words which have no distinct ideas to 
them, though, in other matters that they 
come with an unbiassed indiflerency to, they 



» OF THE CONDUCT 

want not abilities to talk and hear reason, 
where they have no secret inclination that 
hinders them from being tractable to it. 

3. The third sort is of those who readily 
and sincerely follow reason, but for want of 
having that which one may call large, sound, 
round-about sense, have not a full view of all 
that relates to the question, and may be of 
moment to decide it. We are all short- 
sighted, and very often see but one side of a 
matter ; our views are not extended to all 
that has a connection with it. From this de- 
fect I think no man is free. We see but in 
part, and we know but in part, and there- 
fore it is no wonder we conclude not right 
from our partial views. This might instruct 
the proudest esteemer of his own parts, 
how useful it is to talk and consult with 
others, even such as come short of him in 
capacity, quickness and penetration : for, 
since no one sees all, and we generally have 
different prospects of the same thing, accord- 
ing to our different, as I may say, positions 
to it, it is not incongruous to think, nor 
beneath any man to try, whether another 
may not have notions of things which have 
escaped him, and which his reason would 
make use of if they came into his mind. 
The faculty of reasoning seldom or never 
deceives those who trust to it ; its conse- 
quences from what it builds on are evident 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 9 

and certain, but that which it oftenest, if not 
only, misleads us in, is, that the principles 
from Avhich we conclude, the grounds upon 
which we bottom our reasoning, are but a 
part, something is left out which should go 
into the reckoning to make it just and exact. 
Here we may imagine a vast and almost in- 
finite advantage that angels and separate 
spirits may have over us ; who, in their sever- 
al degrees of elevation above us, may be 
endowed with more comprehensive faculties, 
and some of them perhaps having perfect 
and exact views of all finite beings that come 
under their consideration, can as it were, in 
the twinkling of an eye, collect together all 
their scattered and almost boundless relations 
A mind so furnished, what reason has it to 
acquiesce in the certainty of its conclusions ! 
In this we may see the reason why some 
men of study and thought, that reason right, 
and are lovers of truth, do make no great 
advances in their discoveries of it. Error 
and truth are uncertainly blended in their 
minds ; their decisions are lame and defec- 
tive, and they are very often mistaken in 
their judgments : the reason whereof is, they 
converse but with one sort of men, they read 
but one sort of books, they will not come in 
the hearing but of one sort of notions ; the 
truth is they canton out to themselves a little 
Goshen in the intellectual world, where light 



10 OP THF CONDUCT 

shines, and as they con&lude, day blesses 
them ; but the rest of that vast expansion 
they give up to night and darkness, and 
so avoid coming near it. They have a pretty 
traffic with known correspondents in some 
little creek ; within that they confine them- 
selves, and are dexterous managers enough 
of the wares and products of that corner with 
which they content themselves, but will not 
venture out into the great ocean of knowledge, 
to survey the riches that nature hath stored 
other parts with, no less genuine, no less solid, 
no less useful, than what has fallen to their lot 
in the admired plenty and sufficiency of their 
own little spot, w r hich to them contains what- 
soever is good in the universe. Those who 
live thus mewed up within their own con- 
tracted territories, and will not look abroad 
beyond the boundaries that chance, conceit, 
or laziness has set to their inquires, but live 
separate from the notions, discourses, and at- 
tainments of the rest of mankind, may not 
amiss be represented by the inhabitants of 
the Marian islands ; who being separated by 
a large tract of sea from all communion with 
the habitable parts of the earth, thought 
themselves the only people of the world. 
And though the straitness of the convenien- 
ces of life amongst them had never reached 
so far as to the use of fire, till the Span- 
iards, not many years since, in iheir voyages 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 11 

from Acapulco to Manilla, brought it amongst 
them : yet in the want and ignorance of al- 
most ali things, they looked upon themselves, 
even after that the Spaniards had brought 
amongst them the notice of variety of nations 
abounding in sciences, arts, and conveniences 
of life, of which they knew nothing, they 
looked upon themselves, I say, as the hap- 
piest and wisest people of the universe. But 
for all that, nobody, I think, will imagine 
them deep naturalists, or solid metaphysi- 
cians ; nobody will deem the quickest-sighted 
among them to have very enlarged views in 
ethics or politics, nor can any one allow the 
most capable amongst them to be advanced so 
far in his understanding, as to have any other 
knowledge but of the few little things of his 
and the neighbouring islands within his com- 
merce ; but far enough from that comprehen- 
sive enlargement of mind which adorns a 
soul devoted to truth, assisted with letters, 
and a free generation of the several views 
and sentiments of thinking men of all sides. 
Let not men, therefore, that would have 
a sight of what every one pretends to be 
desirous to have a sight of, truth in its full 
extent, narrow and blind their own prospect. 
Let not men think there is no truth but in 
the sciences that they study, or the books 
that they read. To prejudge other men's 
notions before we have looked into them, is 



12 OF THF CONDUCT 

not to show their darkness, but to put out our 
own eyes. Try all things, holdfast that which 
is good, is a divine rule, coming from the Fa- 
ther of light and truth ; and it is hard to 
know what other way men can come at truth, 
to lay hold of it, if they do not dig and search 
for it as for gold and hid treasure : but he 
that does so must have much earth and rub 
bish before he gets the pure metal ; sand, 
and pebbles, and dross usually lie blended 
with it, but the gold is nevertheless gold, and 
will enrich the man that employs his pains to 
seek and separate it. Neither is there any 
danger he should be deceived by the mixture 
Every man carries about him a touchstone, 
if he will make use of it, to distinguish sub- 
stantial gold from superficial glitterings, truth 
from appearances. And indeed the use and 
benefit of this touchstone, which is natural 
reason, is spoiled and lost only by assuming 
prejudices, over-weening presumption, and 
narrowing our minds. The want of exercis- 
ing it in the full extent of things intelligible, 
is that which weakens and extinguishes this 
noble faculty in us. Trace it, and see whe- 
ther it be not so. The day-labourer in a 
country village has commonly but a small 
pittance of knowledge, because his ideas and 
notions have been confined to the narrow 
bounds of a poor conversation and employ- 
ment : the low mechanic of a country town 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. Y3 

does somewhat outdo him ; porters and coolers 
of great cities surpass them. A country gen- 
tleman who, leaving Latin and learning in the 
university, removes thence to his mansion- 
house, and associates with neighbours of the 
same strain, who relish nothing but hunting 
and a bottle ; with those alone he spends his 
time, with those alone he converses, and can 
away with no company whose discourse goes 
beyond what claret and dissoluteness inspire. 
Such a patriot formed in this happy way of 
improvement, cannot fail, as we see, to give 
notable decisions upon the bench at quarter- 
sessions, and eminent proofs of his skill in 
politics when the strength of his purse and party 
have advanced him to a more conspicuous 
station. To such a one truly an ordinary 
coffee-house gleaner of the city is an errant 
statesman, and as much superior to, as a man, 
conversant about Whitehall' and the court, is 
to an ordinary shopkeeper. To carry this a 
little farther Here is one muffled up in the 
zeal and infallibility of his own sect, and will 
not touch a book, or enter into debate with a 
person that will question any of those things 
which to him are sacred. Another surveys our 
differences in religion with an equitable and 
fair indifference, and so finds probably that 
none of them are in every thing unexception- 
able. These divisions and systems were made 
by men, and carry the mark of fallible ou 
c 



14 OF THE CONDUCT 

them ; and in those whom he differs from, and 
till he opened his eyes, had a general prejudice 
against, he meets with more to be said for a 
great many things than before he was aware 
of, or could have imagined. Which of these 
two, now, is most likely to judge right in our 
religious controversies, and to be most stored 
with truth, the mark all pretend to aim at ? 
All these men, that I have instanced in, thus 
unequally furnished with truth, and advanced 
in knowledge, I suppose of equal natural parts ; 
all the odds between them has been the differ- 
ent scope that has been given to their under- 
standings to range in, for the gathering up of 
information, and furnishing their heads with 
ideas and notions and observations, whereon 
to employ their mind and form their under- 
standings. 

It will possibly be objected, " who is suffi- 
cient for all this ?" I answer, more than can 
be imagined. Every one knows what his 
proper business is, and what, according to the 
character he makes of himself, the world may 
justly expect of him ; and, to answer that, he 
will find he will have time and opportunity 
enough to furnish himself, if he will not deprive 
himself, by a narrowness of spirit, of those 
helps that are at hand. I do not say, to be a 
good geographer, that a man should visit 
every mountain, river, promontory, and creek, 
upon the face of the earth, view the buildings, 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 15 

and survey the land every where, as if he 
were going to make a purchase ; but yet every 
one must allow that he shall know a country 
better, that makes often sallies into it, and 
traverses up and down, than he that, like 
a mill-horse, goes still round in the same 
track, or keeps within the narrow bounds of a 
field or two that delight him. He that will 
inquire out the best books in every science, 
and inform himself of the most material au- 
thors of the several sects of philosophy and 
religion, will not find it an infinite work to 
acquaint himself with the sentiments of man- 
kind, concerning the most weighty and com- 
prehensive subjects. Let him exercise the 
freedom of his reason and understanding in 
such a latitude as this, and his mind will be 
strengthened, his capacity enlarged, his facul- 
ties improved ; and the light, which the remote 
and scattered parts of truth will give to one 
another, will so assist his judgment, that he 
will seldom be widely out, or miss giving proof 
of a clear head and a comprehensive know- 
ledge. At least, this is the only way I know 
to give the understanding its due improvement 
to the full extent of its capacity, and to dis- 
tinguish the two most different things I know 
in the world, a logical chicaner from a man of 
reason. Only he, that would thus give the 
mind its flight, and send abroad his inquiries 
into all parts after truth, must be sure to settle 



16 OF THE CONDUCT 

in his head determined ideas of all that he 
employs his thoughts about, and never fail to 
judge himself, and judge unbiassedly, of all 
that he receives from others, either in their 
writings or discourses. Reverence or prejudice 
must not be suffered to give beauty or de- 
formity to any of their opinions. 

§ 4. Of Practice and Habits. 

We are born with faculties and powers 
capable almost of any thing, such at least as 
would carry us farther than can easily be ima- 
gined : but ic is only the exercise of those 
powers which gives us ability and skill in any 
thing, and leads us towards perfection. 

A middle-aged ploughman will scarce ever 
be brought to the carriage and language of a 
gentleman, though his body be as well propor- 
tioned, and his joints as supple, and his natural 
parts not any way inferior. The legs of a 
dancing-master, and the fingers of a musician, 
fall as it were naturally, without thought or 
pains, into regular and admirable- motions. 
Bid them change their parts, and they will in 
vain endeavour to produce like motions in the 
members not used to them, and it will require 
length of time and long practice to attain but 
some degrees of a like ability. What incredi- 
ble and astonishing actions do w r e find rope- 
dancers and tumblers bring their bodies to ! 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 17 

Not but that sundry, in almost all manna! arts, 
are as wonderful ; but I name those which the 
world takes notice of for such, because on that 
very account they give money to see them. 
All these admired motions, beyond the reach 
and almost conception of unpractised specta- 
tors, are nothing but the mere effects of use 
and industry in men, whose bodies have noth- 
ing peculiar in them from those of the amazed 
lookers on. 

As it is in the body, so it is in the mind ; 
practice makes it what it is, and most even 
of those excellencies, which are looked on as 
natural endowments, will be found, when ex- 
amined into more narrowly, to be the produci 
of exercise, and to be raised to that pitch only 
by repeated actions. Some men are remarked 
for pleasantness in raillery ; others for apo- 
logues and apposite diverting stories. This is 
apt to be taken for the effect of pure nature, 
and that the rather, because it is not got by 
rules, and those who excel in either of them 
never purposely set themselves to the study of 
it, as an art to be learnt. But yet it is true 
that at first some lucky hit, which took with 
somebody, and gained him commendation, 
encouraged him to try again, inclined his 
thoughts and endeavours that way, till at last 
he insensibly got a facility in it, without per- 
ceiving how ; and that is attributed wholly to 
nature, which was much more the effect of 
c 2 



IB OF THE CONDUCT 

use and practice. I do not deny that natural 
disposition may often give the first rise to it, 
but that never carries a man far, without use 
and exercise ; and it is practice alone that 
brings the powers of the mind, as well as those 
of the body, to their perfection. Many a good 
poetic vein is buried under a trade, and never 
produces any thing for want of improvement. 
We see the ways of discourse and reasoning 
are very different, even concerning the same 
matter, at court and in the university. And 
he that will go but from Westminster-hall to 
the Exchange, will find a different genius and 
turn in their ways of talking ; and yet one 
cannot think that all whose lot fell in the city 
were born with different parts from those who 
were bred at the university or inns of court. 

To what purpose all this, but to show that 
the difference, so observable in men's under- 
standings and parts, does not arise so much 
from their natural faculties as acquired habits. 
He would be laughed at that should go about 
to make a fine dancer out of a country hed- 
ger, at past fifty. And he will not have much 
better success, w r ho shall endeavour, at that 
age, to make a man reason well, or speak 
handsomely, who has never been used to it, 
though you should lay before him a collection 
of all the best precepts of logic or oratory. 
Nobody is made any thing by hearing of 
rules, or laying, them up in his memory ; 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 19 

practice must settle the habit of doing with- 
out reflecting on the rule, and you may as 
well hope to make a good painter or musician 
extempore by a lecture and instruction in the 
arts of music and painting, as a coherent 
thinker, or a strict reasoner, by a set of rules, 
showing him wherein right reasoning consists. 
This being so, that defects and weakness 
in men's understandings, as well as other 
faculties, come from want of a right use of 
their own minds, I am apt to think the fault 
is generally mislaid upon nature, and there 
is often a complaint of want of parts, when 
the fault lies in want of a due improvement 
of them. We see men frequently dexter- 
ous and sharp enough in making a bargain, 
who, if you reason with them about matters 
of religion, appear perfectly stupid. 

§ 5. Ideas. 

I will not here, in what relates to the right 
conduct and improvement of the under- 
standing, repeat again the getting clear and 
determined ideas, and the employing our 
thoughts rather about them than about sounds 
put for them, nor cf settling the signification 
of words which we use with ourselves in the 
search of truth, or with others in discoursing 
about it. — -Those hinderances of our under- 
standings in the pursuit of knowledge I have 



20 OF THE CONDUCT 

sufficiently enlarged upon in another place , 
so that nothing more needs here to be said 
of those matters. 

6. Principles. 

There is another fault that stops or misleads 
men in their knowledge, which I have also 
spoken something of, but yet is necessary to 
mention here again, that we may examine it 
to the bottom, and see the root it springs 
from, and that is a custom of taking up with 
principles that are not self-evident, and very 
often not so much as true. It is not unusual 
to see men rest their opinions upon founda- 
tions that have no more certainty and solidity 
than the propositions built on them, and em- 
braced for their sake. Such foundations are 
these and the like, viz. The founders or lead- 
ers of my party are good men, and therefore 
their tenets are true ; it is the opinion of a sect 
that is erroneous, therefore it is false ; it hath 
been long received in the world, therefore 
it is true ; or it is new, and therefore false.. 

These, and many the like, which are by no 
means the measures of truth and falsehood, 
the generality of men make the standards by 
which they accustom their understanding 
to judge. And thus they falling into a habit 
of determining of truth and falsehood by such 
wrong measures, it is no wonder they should 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 21 

embrace error for certainty, and be very 
positive in things they have no ground for. 

There is not any, who pretends to the 
least reason, but, when any of these his false 
maxims are brought to the test, must ac- 
knowledge them to be fallible, and such as he 
will not allow in those that differ from him ; 
and yet after he is convinced of this, you 
shall see him go on in the use of them, and the 
very next occasion that offers, argue again 
upon the same grounds. Would one not be 
ready to think that men are willing to impose 
upon themselves, and mislead their own 
understandings, who conduct them by such 
wrong measures, even after they see they 
cannot be relied on ? But yet they will not 
appear so blameable as may be thought at 
first sight ; for I think there are a great 
many that argue thus in earnest, and do it 
not to impose on themselves or others. They 
are persuaded of what they say, and think 
there is weight in it, though in a like casp 
they have been convinced there is none ; but 
men would be intolerable to themselves, and 
contemptible to others, if they should em- 
brace opinions without any ground, and hold 
ivhat they could give no manner of reason 
for. True or false, solid or sandy, the mind 
must have some foundation to rest itself 
upon, and, as I have remarked in another 
place, it no sooner entertains any proposi- 



22 OF THE CONDUCT 

tion, but it presently hastens to some hy- 
pothesis to bottom it on, till then it is un- 
quiet and unsettled. — So much do our own 
very tempers dispose us to a right use of 
our understandings, if we would follow as 
we should the inclinations of our nature. 

In some matters of concernment, especial- 
ly those of religion, men are not permitted 
to be always wavering and uncertain, they 
must embrace and profess some tenets or 
other ; and it would be a shame, nay a con- 
tradiction too heavy for any one's mind to 
lie constantly under, for him to pretend seri- 
ously to be persuaded of the truth of any 
religion, and yet not be able to give any rea- 
son of his belief, or to say any thing for his 
preference of this to any other opinion ; and 
therefore they must make use of some prin- 
ciples or other, and those can be no other 
than such as they have and can manage : and 
to say they are not in earnest persuaded by 
them, and do not rest upon those they make 
use of, is contrary to experience, and to al- 
lege that they are not misled when we com- 
plain they are. 

If this be so, it will be urged, why then do 
they not make use of sure and unquestionable 
principles, rather than rest on such grounds 
as may deceive them, and will, as is visible, 
serve to support error as well as truth ? 

To this I answer, the reason why they do 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 23 

not make use of better and surer principles, 
is because they cannot : but this inability 
proceeds not from want of natural parts (for 
those few whose case that is are to be ex- 
cused) but for want of use and exercise. 
Few men are from their youth accustomed 
to strict reasoning, and to trace the depen- 
dence of any truth in a long train of conse- 
quences to its remotest principles, and to ob- 
serve its connection ; and he that by frequent 
practice has not been used to this employ- 
ment of his understanding, it is no more won- 
der that he should not, when he is grown into 
years, be able to bring his mind to it, than 
that he should not be on a sudden able to 
grave or design, dance on the ropes, or write 
a good hand, who has never practised either 
of them. 

- Nay, the most of men are so wholly strangers 
to this, that they do not so much as perceive 
their want of it ; they despatch the ordinary 
business of their callings by rote, as we say, 
as they have learned it ; and if at any time 
they miss success, they impute it to any thing 
rather than want of thought or skill ; that 
they conclude (because they know no better) 
they have in perfection ; or if there be any 
subject that interest or fancy has recom- 
mended to their thoughts, their reasoning 
about it is still after their own fashion ; be it 
better or worse, it serves their turns, and 



£4 OF THE CONDUCT 

is the best they are acquainted with ; and 
therefore when they are led by it into mis- 
takes, and their business succeeds according- 
ly, they impute it to any cross accident, oi 
default of others, rather than to their own 
want of understanding ; that is, what nobody 
discovers or complains of in himself. What- 
soever made his business to miscarry, it was 
not want of right thought and judgment in 
himself : he sees no such defect in himself, 
but is satisfied 4 hat he carries on his designs 
well enough b^ his own reasoning, or at least 
should have done, had it not been for unlucky 
traverses not in his power. Thus being con- 
tent with this short and very imperfect use of 
his understanding, he never troubles himself 
to seek out methods of improving his mind, 
and lives all his life without any notion of 
close reasoning^ in a'continued connection of a 
long train of consequences from sure foun- 
dations, such as is requisite for the making 
out and clearing most of the speculative 
truths most men own to believe and are most 
concerned in. Not to mention here what I 
shall have occasion to insist on by and by 
more fully, viz. that in many cases it is not 
one series of consequences will serve the 
turn, but many different and opposite deduc- 
tions must be examined and laid together, 
before a man can come to make a right 
judgment of the point in question. What 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 25 

then can be expected from men that neither 
see the want of any such kind of reasoning as 
this : nor, if they do, know how to set about 
it, or could perform it ? You may as well set 
a countryman, who scarce knows the figures, 
and never cast up a sum of three particulars, 
to state a merchant's long account, and find 
the true balance of it. 

What then should be done in the case ? I 
answer, we should always remember what I 
said above, that the faculties of our souls are 
improved and made useful to us just after the 
same manner as our bodies are. Would you 
have a man write or paint, dance or fence 
well, or perform any other manual operation 
dexterously and with ease ; let him have ever 
so much vigour and activity, suppleness and 
address naturally, yet nobody expects this 
from him, unless he has been used to it, and 
has employed time and pains in fashioning 
and forming his hand, or outward parts to these 
motions. Just so it is in the mind : would you 
have a man reason well, you must use him to 
it betimes, exercise his mind in observing the 
connexion of ideas, and following them in 
train. Nothing does this better than mathe- 
matics, which, therefore, I think should be 
taught all those who have the time and oppor- 
tunity ; not so much to make them mathema- 
ticians, as to make them reasonable creatures ; 
for though we all call ourselves so, because 

D 



26 OF THE CONDUCT 

we are born to it, if we please ; yet we may 
truly say, nature gives us but the seeds of it : 
we are born to be, if we please, rational crea- 
tures ; but it is use and exercise only that 
make us so, and we are, indeed, so no farther 
than industry and application have carried us. 
And, therefore, in ways of reasoning, which 
men have not been used to, he that will observe 
the conclusions they take up, must be satisfied 
they are not all rational. 

This has been the less taken notice of, be- 
cause every one, in his private affairs, uses 
some sort of reasoning or other, enough to 
denominate him reasonable. But the mistake 
is, that he that is found reasonable in one 
thing, is concluded to be so in all, and to think 
or to say otherwise is thought so unjust an af- 
front, and so senseless a censure, that nobody 
ventures to do it. It looks like the degradation 
of a man below the dignity of his nature. It 
is true, that he that reasons well in any one 
thing has a mind naturally capable of reasoning 
well in others, and to the same degree of 
strength and clearness, and possibly much 
greater, had his understanding been so em- 
ployed. But it is as true that he who can 
reason well to-day about one sort of matters, 
cannot at all reason to-day about others, 
though perhaps a year hence he may. But 
wherever a man's rational faculty fails him, 
and will not serve him to reason, there we 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 27 

cannot say he is rational, how capable soev- 
er he may be, by time and exercise, to be- 
come so. 

Try in men of low and mean education, who 
have never elevated their thoughts above the 
spade and the plough, nor looked beyond the 
ordinary drudgery of a day-labourer. Take 
the thoughts of such an one, used for many 
years to one track, out of that narrow com- 
pass, he has been all his life confined to, you 
will find him no more capable of reasoning 
than almost a perfect natural. Some one or 
two rules, on which their conclusion imme- 
diately depend, you will find in most men have 
governed all their thoughts ; these, true or 
false, have been the maxims they have been 
guided by : take these from them, and they 
are perfectly at a loss, their compass and pole- 
star then are gone, and their understanding is 
perfectly at a nonplus ; and therefore they 
either immediately return to their old maxims 
again, as the foundations of all truth to them, 
notwithstanding all that can be said to show 
their weakness ; o .* if they give them up to 
their reasons, they, with them, give up all 
truth and farther inquiry, and think there is 
no such thing as certainty. For if you would 
enlarge their thoughts, and settle them upon 
more remote and surer principles, they either 
cannot easily apprehend them ; or, if they 
can, know not what use to make of them ; for 



28 OF THE CONDUCT 

long deductions from remote principles are 
what they have not been used to, and cannot 
manage. 

What then, can grown men never be im- 
proved, or enlarged in their understandings ? 
I say not so ; but this I think I may say, that 
it will not be done without industry and appli- 
cation, which will require more time and 
pains than grown men, settled in their course 
of life, will allow to it, and therefore very sel- 
dom is done. And this very capacity of at- 
taining it, by use and exercise only, brings us 
back to that which I laid down before, that it 
is only practice that improves our minds as 
well as bodies, and we must expect nothing 
from our understandings, any farther than they 
are perfected by habits. 

The Americans are not all born with worse 
understandings than the Europeans, though we 
see none of them have such reaches in the arts 
and sciences. And, among the children of a 
poor countryman, the lucky chance of educa- 
tion, and getting into the world, gives one in- 
finitely the superiority in parts over the rest, 
who, continuing at home, had continued also 
just of the same size with his brethren. 

He that has to do with young scholars, 
especially in mathematics, may perceive how 
their minds open by degrees, and how it is ex- 
ercise alone that opens them. Sometimes they 
will stick a long t v ime at a part of demonstra- 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 29 

tion, not for want of will and application, but 
really for want of perceiving the connexion of 
two ideas, that, to one whose understanding is 
more exercised, is as visible as any thing can 
be. The same would be with a grown man 
beginning to study mathematics ; the under- 
standing, for want of use, often sticks in eve- 
ry plain way, and he himself that is so puz- 
zled, when he comes to see the connexion, 
wonders what it was he stuck at, in a case so 
plain. 

§ 7. Mathematics. 

I have mentioned mathematics as a way to 
settle in the mind a habit of reasoning closely 
and in train ; not that I think it necessary 
that all men should be deep mathematicians, 
but that, having got the way of reasoning, 
which that study necessarily brings the mind 
to, they might be able to transfer it to other 
parts of knowledge, as they shall have occa- 
sion. For, in all sorts of reasoning, every sin- 
gle argument should be managed as a mathe- 
matical demonstration : the connexion and de- 
pendence of ideas should be followed, till the 
mind is brought to the source on which it bot- 
toms, and observes the coherence all along, 
though in proofs of probability one such train 
is not enough to settle the judgment, as in de- 
monstrative knowledge. 
n2 



30 OF THE CONDUCT 

Where a truth is made out by one demon- 
stration, there needs no farther inquiry ; but 
in probabilities, where there wants demonstra- 
tion to establish the truth beyond doubt, there 
it is not enough to trace one argument to its 
source, and observe its strength and weakness, 
but all the arguments, after having been so 
examined on both sides, must be laid in bal- 
ance one against another, and, upon the whole, 
the understanding determine its assent. 

This is a way of reasoning the understand- 
ing should be accustomed to, which is so dif- 
ferent from what the illiterate are used to, 
that even learned men oftentimes seem to 
have very little or no notion of it. Nor is it 
to be wondered, since the way of disputing, 
in the schools, leads them quite away from it, 
by insisting on one topical argument, by the 
success of which the truth or falsehood of the 
question is to be determined, and victory ad- 
judged to the opponent or defendant ; which 
is all one as if one should balance an account 
by one sum, charged and discharged, when 
there are an hundred others to be taken into 
consideration. 

This, therefore, it would be well if mens' 
minds were accustomed to, and that early ; 
that they might not erect their opinions upon 
one single view, when so many other are requi- 
site to make up the account, and must come 
into the reckoning, before a man can form a 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 31 

right judgment. This would enlarge their 
minds, and give a due freedom to their under- 
standings, that they might not be led into er- 
ror by presumption, laziness, or precipitancy ; 
for I think nobody can approve such a con- 
duct of the understanding as should mislead it 
from truth, though it be ever so much in fash- 
ion to make use of it. 

To this perhaps it will be objected, that to 
manage the understanding as I propose would 
require every man to be a scholar, and to be 
furnished with all the materials of knowledge, 
and exercised in all the ways of reasoning. 
To which I answer, that it is a shame for 
those that have time, and the means to attain 
knowledge, to want any helps or assistance, 
for the improvement of their understandings, 
that are to be got ; and to such I would be 
thought here chiefly to speak. Those me- 
thinks, who by the industry and parts of their 
ancestors, have been set free from a constant 
drudgery to their backs and their bellies, 
should bestow some of their spare time on 
their heads, and upon their minds, by some 
trials and essays, in all the sorts and matters 
of reasoning. I have before mentioned ma- 
thematics, wherein algebra gives new helps 
and views to the understanding. If I propose 
these, it is not, as I said, to make every man 
a thorough mathematician, or a deep algebra- 
ist ; but yet I think the study of them is of 



32 OF THE CONDUCT 

infinite use, even to grown men ; first, by ex- 
perimentally convincing them, that to make 
any one reason well, it is not enough to have 
parts wherewith he is satisfied, and that serve 
him well enough in his ordinary course. A 
man in those studies will see, that however 
good he may think his understanding, yet in 
many things, and those very visible, it may fail 
him. This would take off that presumption 
that most men have of themselves in this 
part ; and they would not be so apt to think 
their minds wanted no helps to enlarge them, 
that there could be nothing added to the 
acuteness and penetration of their understand- 
ings. 

Secondly, The study of mathematics would 
show them the necessity there is in reasoning, 
to separate all the distinct ideas, and see the 
habitudes that all those concerned in the pres- 
ent inquiry have to one another, and to lay by 
those which relate not to the proposition in 
hand, and wholly to leave them out of the 
reckoning. This is that which in other sub- 
jects, besides quantity, is what is absolutely 
requisite to just reasoning, though in them it 
is not so easily observed, nor so carefully 
practised. In those parts of knowledge where 
it is thought demonstration has nothing to do, 
men reason as it were in the lump ; and if, 
upon a summary and confused view, or upon 
a partial consideration, they can raise the ap- 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 33 

pearance of a probability, they usually rest 
content ; especially if it be in a dispute where 
every little straw is laid hold on, and every 
thing that can but be drawn in any way to 
give colour to the argument is advanced with 
ostentation. But that mind is not in a posture 
to find the truth, that does not distinctly take 
all the parts asunder, and, omitting what is 
not at all to the point, draw a conclusion from 
the result of all the particulars which any 
way influence it. There is another no less 
useful habit to he got by an application to 
mathematical demonstrations, and that is, of 
using the mind to a long train of consequen- 
ces ; but having mentioned that already, J 
shall not again here repeat it. 

As to men whose fortunes and time are 
narrower, what may suffice them is not of 
that vast extent as may be imagined and so 
comes not within the objection. 

Nobody is under an obligation to know 
every thing. Knowledge and science in gen- 
eral is the business onlv of those^who are at 
ease and leisure. Those who have particular 
callings ought to understand them ; and it is 
no unreasonable proposal, nor impossible to 
be compassed, that they should think and 
reason right about what is their daily employ- 
ment. This one cannot think them incapable 
of, without levelling them with the brutes, 



34 OF THE CONDUCT 

and charging them with a stupidity below the 
rank of rational creatures. 

5} 8. Religion. 

Besides his particular calling for the support 
of this life, every one has a concern in a fu- 
ture life, which he is bound to look after. 
This engages his thoughts in religion ; and 
here it mightily lies upon him to understand 
and reason right. Men, therefore, cannot 
be excused from understanding the words, and 
framing the general notions relating to reli- 
gion, right. The one day of seven, besides 
other days of rest, allows in the Christian 
world time enough for this (had they no other 
idle hours) if they would but make use of 
these vacancies from their daily labour, and 
apply themselves to an improvemnt of knowl- 
edge with as much diligence as they often do 
to a great many other things that are useless, 
and had but those that would enter them ac- 
cording to their several capacities in a right 
way to this knowledge. The original make 
of their minds is like that of other men, and 
they would be found not to want understand- 
ing fit to receive the knowledge of religion, if 
they were a little encouraged and helped in it, 
as they should be. For there are instances 
of very mean people, who have raised their 
minds to a great sense and understanding of 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 35 

religion : and though these have not been so 
frequent as could be wished ; yet they are 
enough to clear that condition of life from a 
necessity of gross ignorance, and to show 
that more might be brought to be rational 
creatures and Christians (for they can hardly 
be thought really to be so, who, wearing the 
name, know not so much as the very princi- 
ples of that religion) if due care were taken 
of them. For, If I mistake not, the peas- 
antry lately in France (a rank of people un- 
der a much heavier pressure of want and 
poverty than the day-labourers in England) 
of the reformed religion understood it much 
better, and could say more for it than those 
of a higher condition among us. 

But if it shall be concluded that the mean- 
er sort of people must give themselves up to 
brutish stupidity in the things of their nearest 
concernment, which I see no reason for, this 
excuses not those of a freer fortune and 
education, if they neglect their understand- 
ings, and take no care to employ them as 
they ought, and set them right in the knowl- 
edge of those things for which principally 
they were given them. At least those, whose 
plentiful fortunes allow them the opportunities 
and helps of improvements, are not so few, 
but that it might be hoped great advance- 
ments might be made in knowledge of all 
kinds, especially in that of the greatest con- 



36 OF THE CONDUCT 

cern and largest views, if men would make 
a right use of their faculties, and study their 
own understandings. 

§ 9. Ideas. 

Outward corporeal objects, that constantly 
importune our senses, and captivate our ap- 
petites, fail not to fill our heads with lively 
and lasting ideas of that kind. Here the 
mind needs not to be set upon getting greater 
store ; they offer themselves fast enough, and 
are usually entertained in such plenty, and 
lodged so carefully, that the mind wants room 
or attention for others that it has more use and 
need of. To fit the understanding therefore 
for such reasoning as I have been above 
speaking of, care should be taken to fill it 
with moral and more abstract ideas ; for 
these not offering themselves to the senses, 
but being to be framed to the understanding 
people are generally so neglectful of a faculty 
they are apt to think wants nothing, that I 
fear most men's minds are more unfurnished 
with such ideas than is imagined. They often 
use the words, and how can they be suspected 
to want the ideas ? What I have said in the 
third book of my Essay, will excuse me from 
any other answer to this question. But to 
convince people of what moment it is to 
their understandings to be furnished with 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 37 

such abstract ideas steady and settled in 
them, give me leave to ask how any one shall 
be able to know whether he be obliged to be 
just, if he has not established ideas in his 
mind of obligation and of justice, since knowl- 
edge consists in nothing but the perceived 
agreement or disagreement of those ideas ? 
and so of all others the like, which concern 
our lives and manners. And if men do find 
a difficulty to see the agreement or disagree- 
ment of two angles which lie before their 
eyes, unalterable in a diagram, how utterly 
impossible will it be to perceive it in ideas 
that have no other sensible objects to repre- 
sent them to the mind but sounds, with which 
they have no manner of conformity, and 
therefore had need to be clearly settled in 
the mind themselves, if we would make any 
clear judgment about them. This therefore 
is one of the first things the mind should be 
employed about in the right conduct of the 
understanding, without which it is impossible 
it should be capable of reasoning right about 
those matters. But in these, and all other 
ideas, care must be taken that they harbour 
no inconsistencies, and that they have a real 
existence where real existence is supposed, 
and are not mere chimeras with a supposed 
existence. 

D 



38 OF THE CONDUCT 

§10. Prejudice. 

Every one is forward to complain of the 
prejudices that mislead other men or parties, 
as if he were free, and had none of his own. 
This being objected on all sides, it is agreed, 
that it is a fault and an hinderance to knowl- 
edge. What now is the cure ? No other but 
this, that every man should let alone other's 
prejudices, and examine his own. — Nobody 
is convinced of his by the accusation of 
another, he recriminates by the same rule, 
and is clear. The only way to remove this 
great cause of ignorance and error out of 
the world is for every one impartially to ex- 
amine himself. If others will not deal fairly 
with their own minds, does that make mv 
errors truths ? or ought it to make me in love 
with them, and willing to impose on myself ? 
If others love cataracts in their eyes, should 
that hinder me from couching mine as soon 
as I can ? Every one declares against blind- 
ness, and yet who almost is not fond of that 
which dims his sight and keeps the clear light 
out of his mind, which should lead him into 
truth and knowledge ? False or doubtful 
positions, relied upon as unquestionable max- 
ims, keep those in the dark from truth who 
build on them. Such are usually the preju- 
dices imbibed from education, party, rever- 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 39 

ence, fashion, interest. See. This is the mote 
which every one sees in his brother's eye, 
but never regards the beam in his own. For 
who is there almost that is ever brought fairly 
to examine his own principles, and see whe- 
ther they are such as will bear the trial ? But 
yet this should be one of the first things every 
one should set about, and be scrupulous in, 
who would rightly conduct his understanding 
in the search of truth and knowledge. 

To those who are willing to get rid of this 
great hinderance of knowledge (for to such 
only I write) to those who would shake off 
this great and dangerous impostor prejudice, 
who dresses up falsehood in the likeness of 
truth, and so dexterously hoodwinks men's 
minds , as to keep them in the dark, with a 
belief that they are more in the light than 
any that do not see with their eyes ; I shall 
offer this one mark whereby prejudice may 
be known. He that is strongly of any opin- 
ion, must suppose (unless he be self-con- 
demned) that his persuasion is built upon 
good grounds ; and that his assent is no 
greater than what the evidence of the truth 
lie holds forces him to ; and that they are 
arguments, and not inclination or fancy, that 
make him so confident and positive in his 
tenets. Now, if after all his profession, he 
cannot bear any opposition to his opinion, if 



40 OF THE CONDUCT 

he carrot so much as give a patient hearing, 
much less examine and weigh the arguments 
on the other side, does he not plainly confess 
it is prejudice governs him ? and it is not the 
evidence of truth, but some lazy anticipation, 
some beloved presumption that he desires to 
rest undisturbed in. For if what he holds be, 
as he gives out, well fenced with evidence, and 
he sees it to be true, what need he fear to put 
it to the proof ? If his opinion be settled upon 
a firm foundation, if the arguments that sup- 
port it, and have obtained his assent, be clear 
good, and convincing, why should he be shy if 
have it tried whether they be proof or t 
He whose assent goes beyond his evu 
owes this excess of his adherence only to ^ - 
judice, and does in effect own it, when 
refuses to hear what is offered against it 
declaring thereby, that it is not evidence k 
seeks, but the quiet enjoyment of the opinio 
he is fond of, with a forward condemnatio 
of all that may stand in opposition to it, un 
heard and unexamined ; which, what is it bu 
prejudice ? Qui cequum statuerit parte inaudiib 
altered eliamsi cequum statuerit, haud cequusfuer 
it. He that would acquit himself in this case 
as a lover of truth, not giving way to any 
preoccupation or bias that may mislead him, 
must do two things that are not very common, 
nor very easy. 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 4 

5) 11. Indifferency. 

First, he must not be in love with any opin 
ion, or wish it to be true, till he knows it tc 
be so, and then he will not need to wish it 
for nothing that is false can deserve our good 
wishes, nor a desire that it should have the 
place and force of truth ; and yet nothing is 
more frequent than this. Men are fond of 
certain tenets upon no other evidence but 
respect and custom, and think they must 
maintain them, or all is gone ; though they 
have never examined the ground they stand 
on, nor have ever made them out to them- 
selves, or can make them out to others : we 
should contend earnestly for the truth, but 
we should first be sure that it is truth, or else 
we fight against God, who is the God of truth, 
and do the work of the devil, who is the 
father and propagator of lies ; and our zeal, 
though ever so warm, will not excuse us, for 
this is plainly prejudice. 

§ 12. Examine. 

Secondly, he must do that which he will find 
himself very averse to, as judging the thing 
unnecessary, or himself incapable of doing 
it. He must try whether his principles be 
certainly true, or not, and how far he may 
safely rely upon them. This, whether fewer 
e2 



42 OF THE CONDUCT 

have the heart or the skill to do, T shall not 
determine ; but this, I am sure, is that which 
every one ought to do, who professes to love 
truth, and would not impose upon himself ; 
which is a surer way to be made a fool of 
than by being exposed to the sophistry of 
others. The disposition to put any cheat 
upon ourselves works constantly, and we are 
pleased with it, but are impatient of being ban- 
tered or misled by others. The inability I here 
speak of is not any natural defect that makes 
men incapable of examining their own princi- 
ples. To such, rules of conducting their 
understandings are useless; and that is the case 
of very few. The great number is of those 
whom the ill habit of never exerting their 
thoughts has disabled ; the powers of their 
minds are starved by disuse, and have lost 
that reach and strength which nature fitted 
them to receive from exercise. Those who 
are in a condition to learn the first rules of 
plain arithmetic, and could be brought to cast 
up an ordinary sum, are capable of this, if 
they had but accustomed their minds to rea- 
soning : but they that have wholly neglected 
the exercise of their understandings in this 
way, will be very far, at first, from being 
able to do it, and as unfit for it as one un- 
practised in figures to cast up a shop-book, 
and, perhaps, think it as strange to be set 
about it. And yet it must nevertheless be 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 43 

confessed to be a wrong use of our understand- 
ings, to build our tenets (in things where we 
are concerned to hold the truth) upon prin- 
ciples that may lead us into error. We take 
our principles at hap-hazard, upon trust, and 
without ever having examined them, and then 
believe a whole system, upon a presumption 
that they are true and solid ; and what is all 
this, but childish, shameful, senseless cre- 
dulity ? 

In these two things, viz. an equal in- 
differency for all truth ; I mean the receiving 
it, the love of it, as truth, but not loving it 
for any other reason, before we know it to 
be true ; and in the examination of our prin- 
ciples, and not receiving any for such, nor 
building on them, till we are fully convinced, 
as rational creatures, of their solidity, truth, 
and certainty ; consists that freedom of the 
understanding which is necessary to a rational 
creature, and without w r hich it is not truly 
an understanding. It is conceit, fancy, ex- 
travagance, any thing rather than under- 
standing, if it must be under the constraint 
of receiving and holding opinions by the 
authority of any thing but their own, not 
fancied, but perceived, evidence. This was 
rightly called imposition, and is of all other 
the worst and most dangerous sort of it. For 
we impose upon ourselves, which is the 
strongest imposition of all others ; and we 



44 OF THE CONDUCT 

impose upon ourselves in that part which 
ought with the greatest care to be kept free 
from all imposition. The world is apt to cast 
great blame on those who have an indifferen- 
cy for opinions, especially in religion. I fear 
this is the foundation of great error and 
worse consequences. To be indifferent which 
of two opinions is true, is the right temper of 
the mind that preserves it from being imposed 
on, and disposes it to examine with that in- 
differency, till it has done its best to find the 
truth, and this is the only direct and safe way to 
it. But to be indifferent whether we embrace 
falsehood or truth, is the great road to error. 
Those who are not indifferent which opinion 
is true, are guilty of this ; they suppose with- 
out examining, that what they hold is true, 
and they think they ought to be zealous for 
it. Those, it is plain by their warmth and 
eagerness, are not indifferent for their own 
opinions, but methinks are very indifferent 
whether they be true or false ; since they 
cannot endure to have any doubts raised, 
or objections made against them ; and it is 
visible they never have made any themselves, 
and so, never having examined, know not, 
nor are concerned, as they should be, to 
know whether they be true or false. 

These are the common and most general 
miscarriages which I think men should avoid, 
or rectify, in a right conduct of their under- 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 45 

standings, and should be particularly taken 
care of in education. The business whereof, 
in respect of knowledge, is not, as I think, to 
perfect a learner in all or any one of the 
sciences, but to give his mind that freedom, 
that disposition, and those habits, that may 
enable him to attain any part of knowledge 
he shall apply himself to, or stand in need of 
in the future course of his life. 

This, and this only, is well principling, and 
not the instilling a reverence and veneration 
for certain dogmas, under the specious title 
of principles, which are often so remote from 
that truth and evidence which belongs to prin- 
ciples, that they ought to be rejected, as false 
and erroneous ; and often cause men so edu- 
cated, when they come abroad into the world, 
and find they cannot maintain the principles 
so taken up and rested in, to cast oft* all prin- 
ciples, and turn perfect skeptics, regardless 
of knowledge and virtue. 

There are several weaknesses and defects 
in the understanding, either from the natural 
temper of the mind, or ill habits taken up, 
which hinder it in its progress to knowledge. 
Of these, there are as many, possibly, to be 
found, if the mind were thoroughly studied, as 
there are diseases of the body, each whereof 
clogs and disables the understanding to some 
degree, and therefore deserves to be looked 
after and cured \ shall set down some few 



46 OF THE CONDUCT 

to excite men, especially those who make 
knowledge their business, to look into them- 
selves, and observe whether they do not in- 
dulge some weaknesses, allow some miscar- 
riages in the management of their intellect- 
ual faculty, which is prejudicial to them in 
the search of truth. 

§13. Observations 

Particular matters of fact are the un- 
doubted foundations on which our civil and 
natural knowledge is built : the benefit the 
understanding makes of them is to draw from 
them conclusions, which may be as standing 
rules of knowledge, and consequently of 
practice. The mind often makes not that 
benefit it should of the information it receives 
from the accounts of civil or natural histo- 
rians, by being too forward or too slow in 
making observations on the particular facts 
recorded in them. 

There are those who are very assiduous, 
in reading, and yet do not much advance 
their knowledge by it. They are delighted 
with the stories that are told, and perhaps 
can tell them again, for they make all they 
read nothing but history to themselves ; but 
not reflecting on it, not making to them- 
selves observations from what they read, they 
are very little improved by all that crowd of 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 47 

particulars, that either pass through, or lodge 
themselves in, their understandings. They 
dream on in a constant course of reading and 
cramping themselves, but not digesting any 
thing, it produces nothing but a heap of cru- 
dities. 

If their memories retain well, one may say 
they have the materials of knowledge, but 
like those for building, they are of no advan- 
tage, if there be no other use made of them 
but to let them lie heaped up together. — Op- 
posite to these there are others who lose the 
improvement they should make of matters of 
fact by a quite contrary conduct. They are 
apt to draw general conclusions, and raise ax- 
ioms from every particular they may meet 
with. These make as little true benefit of 
history as ihe other ; nay, being of forward 
and active spirits, receive more harm by it ; 
it being of worse consequence to steer one's 
thoughts by a wrong rule, than to have none 
at all ; error doing to busy men much more, 
harm than ignorance to the slow and sluggish. 
Between these, those seem to do best, who 
taking material and useful hints, sometimes 
from single matters of fact, carry them into 
their minds to be judged of, by what they 
shall find in history to confirm or reverse these 
imperfect observations ; which may be estab- 
lished into rules fit to be relied on, when they 
are justified by a suificient and wary induction 



48 OF THE CONDUCT 

of particulars. He that makes no such re 
flections on what he reads, only loads his mind 
with a rhapsody of tales fit in winter nights 
for the entertainment of others : and he that 
will improve every matter of fact into a max- 
im, will abound in contrary observations, that 
can be of no other use but to perplex and 
pudder him if he compares them ; or else to 
misguide him, if he gives himself up to the 
authority of that, which for its novelty, or 
for some other fancy, best pleases him. 

§14. Bias. 

Next to these, we may place those, who suffer 
their own natural tempers and passions they are 
possessed with to influence their judgments, es- 
pecially of men and things that may any way 
relate to their present circumstances and in- 
terest. Truth is all simple, all pure, will bear 
no mixture of any thing else with it. It is 
rigid and inflexible to any bye interests ; and 
so should the understanding be, whose use a»ad 
excellency lies in conforming itself to it. To 
think of every thing just as it is in itself, is 
the proper business of the understanding, 
though it be not that which men always em- 
ploy it to. This all men, at first hearing, al- 
low is the right use every one should make of 
his understanding. Nobody will be at such an 
open defiance with common sense, as to pro 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 49 

fess that we should not endeavour to know, 
and think of things as they are in themselves, 
and yet there is nothing more frequent than 
to do the contrary ; and men are apt to ex- 
cuse themselves, and think they have reason to 
do so, if they have but a pretence that it is 
for God, or a good cause ; that is, in effect for 
themselves, their own persuasion or party ; for 
to those in their turns the several sects of men 
especially in matters of religion, entitle God 
and a good cause. But God requires not men 
to wrong or misuse their faculties for him, nor 
to lie to others or themselves for his sake : 
which they purposely do, who will not suffer 
their understandings to have right conceptions 
of the things proposed to them, and design- 
edly restrain themselves from having just 
thoughts of every thing, as far as they are 
concerned to inquire. And as fcr a good 
cause, that needs not such ill helps ; if it be 
good, truth will support it, and it has no need 
of fallacy or falsehood. 

§ 15. Arguments. 

Very much of kin to this is the hunting after 
arguments to make good one side of a ques- 
tion, and wholly to neglect and refuse those 
which favour the other side. What is this 
but wilfully to misguide the understanding, 
and is so far from giving truth its due value, 
w 



50 OF THE CONDUCT 

that it wholly debases it : espouse opinions 
that best comport with their power, profit, or 
credit, and then seek arguments to support 
them ? Truth lit upon this way is of no 
more avail to us than error ; for what is so ta- 
ken up by us maybe false as well as true, and 
he has not done his duty who has thus stum- 
bled upon truth in his way to preferment. 

There is another but more innocent way of 
collecting arguments, very familiar among 
bookish men, which is to furnish themselves 
with the arguments they meet with pro and 
con in the questions they study. This helps 
them not to judge right, nor argue strongly, 
but only to talk copiously on either side, 
without being steady and settled in their own 
judgments : for such arguments gathered from 
other men's thoughts, floating only in the me- 
mory, are there ready indeed to supply copi- 
ous talk with some appearance of reason, but 
are far from helping us to judge right. Such 
variety of arguments only distract the under- 
standing that relies on them, unless it has gone 
farther than such a superficial way of examin- 
ing : this is to quit truth for appearance, only 
to serve our vanity. The sure and only way 
to get true knowledge, is to form in our minds 
clear settled notions of things, with names an- 
nexed to those determined ideas. These we 
are to consider, with their several relations 
and habitudes, and not amuse ourselves with 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 5\ 

floating names, and words of indetermined 
signification, which we can use in several 
senses to serve a turn. It is in the perception 
of the habitudes and respects our ideas have 
one to another, that real knowledge consists ; 
and when a man once perceives how far they 
agree or disagree one with another, he will be 
able to judge of what other people say, and 
will not need to be led by the arguments of 
others, which are many of them nothing but 
plausible sophistry. This will teach him to 
state the question right, and see whereon it 
turns ; and thus he will stand upon his own 
legs, and know by bis own understanding, 
whereas by collecting and learning arguments 
by heart, he will be but a retainer to others ; 
and when any one questions the foundations 
they are built upon, he will be at a nonplus, 
and be fain to give up his implicit knowledge. 

§ 16. Haste. 

Labour for labour-sake is against nature. 
The understanding, as well as all the other 
faculties, chooses always the shortest way to 
its end, would presently obtain the knowledge 
it is about, and then set upon some new in- 
quiry. But this, whether laziness or haste, 
often misleads it, and makes it content itself 
with improper ways of search, and such as 
will not serve the turn : sometimes it rests 



52 OF THE CONDUCT 

upon testimony, when testimony of right has 
nothing to do, because it is easier to believe 
than to be scientifically instructed: sometimes 
it contents itself with one argument, and rests 
satisfied with that, as it were a demonstra- 
tion ; whereas the thing under proof is not 
capable of demonstration, and therefore must 
be submitted to the trial of probabilities, and 
all the material arguments pro and con be ex- 
amined and brought to a balance. In some 
cases the mind is determined by probable 
topics in inquiries, where demonstration may 
be had. AH these and several others, which 
laziness, impatience, custom, and want of use 
and attention lead men into, are misapplica- 
tions of the understanding in the search of 
truth. In every question the nature and man- 
ner of the proof it is capable of should be con- 
sidered, to make our inquiry such as it should 
be. This would save a great deal of frequent- 
ly misemployed pains, and lead us sooner to 
that discovery and possession of truth we are 
capable of. The multiplying variety of ar- 
guments, especially frivolous ones, such as are 
all that are merely verbal, is not only lost la- 
bour, but cumbers the memory to no pur- 
pose, and serves only to hinder it from siez- 
ing and holding of the truth in all those cases 
which are capable of demonstration. In such 
a way of proof the truth and certainty is seen, 
and the mind fully possesses itself of it ; 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 63 

when in the other way of assent it only- 
hovers about it, is amused with uncertainties. 
In this superficial way, indeed, the mind is 
capable of more variety of plausible talk 5 
but is not enlarged, as it should be, in its 
knowledge. It is to this same haste and im- 
patience of the mind also, that a not due 
tracing of the arguments to their true foun- 
dation is owing ; men see a little, presume a 
great deal, and so jump to the conclusion. 
This is a short way to fancy and conceit, and 
(if firmly embraced) to opinionatry, but is 
certainly the farthest way about to knowl- 
edge. For he that will know, must by the 
connexion of the proofs see the truth, and 
the ground it stands on ; and therefore, if 
he has for haste skipped over what he should 
have examined, he must begin and go over 
all again, or else he will never come to knowl- 
edge. 

§ 17. Desultory. 

Another fault of as ill consequence as this, 
which proceeds also from laziness, with a 
mixture of vanity, is the skipping from one 
sort of knowledge to another. Some men's 
tempers are quickly weary of any one thing. 
Constancy and assiduity is what they cannot 
bear : the same study long continued in is as 
intolerable to them as the appearing long in 
E 



54 OF THE CONDUCT 

the same clothes , or fashion, is to a court- 
lady. 

§ 18. Smattering. 

Others, that they may seem universally 
knowing, get a little smattering in every 
thing. Both these may fill their heads with 
superficial notions of things, hut are very 
much out of the way of attaining truth or 
knowledge. 

§ 19. Universality. 

I do not here speak against the taking a taste 
of every sort of knowledge ; it is certainly 
very useful and necessary to form the mind ; 
but then it must he done in a different way, 
and to a different end. Not for talk and 
vanity to fill the head with shreds of all kinds, 
that he who is possessed of such a frippery 
may be able to match the discourses of all 
he shall meet with, as if nothing could come 
amiss to him ; and his head was so well 
stored a magazine, that nothing could be pro- 
posed which he was not master of, and was 
readily furnished to entertain any one. — 
This is an excellency, indeed, and a great 
one too, to have a real and true knowledge iu 
all, or most of the objects of contemplation. 
But it is what the mind of one and the same 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING OO 

man can hardly attain unto ; and the instan- 
ces are so few of those who have, in any 
measure, approached towards it, that I know 
not whether they are to he proposed as ex- 
amples in the ordinary conduct of the under- 
standing. For a man to understand fully the 
business of his particular calling in the com- 
monwealth, and of religion, which is his call- 
ing as he is a man in the world, is usually 
enough to take up his whole time ; and there 
are few that inform themselves in these, 
which is every man's proper and peculr 
business, so to the bottom as they should u-j. 
But though this be so, and there are very 
few men that extend their thoughts toward 
universal knowledge ; jet I do not doubt, but 
if the right way were taken, and the methods 
of inquiry were ordered as they should be, 
men of little business and great leisure might 
go a great deal farther in it than is usually 
done. To return to the business in hand; the 
end and use of a little insight in those parts 
of knowledge, which are not a man's proper 
business, is to accustom our minds to all sorts 
of ideas, and the proper ways of examining 
their habitudes and relations. This gives 
the mind a freedom, and the exercising the 
understanding in the several ways of inquiry 
and reasoning, which the most skilful have 
made use of, teaches the mind sagacity and 
wariness, and a suppleness to apply itself 



56 OF THE CONDUCT 

more closely and dexterously to the bents 
and turns of the matter in all its researches. 
Besides, this universal taste of all the scien- 
ces, with an indifferency before the mind is 
possessed with any one in particular, and 
grown into love and admiration of what is made 
its darling, will prevent another evil, very 
commonly to be observed in those who have 
from the beginning been seasoned only by 
one part of knowledge. Let a man be given 
up to the contemplation of one sort of knowl- 
edge, and that will become every thing. The 
mind will take such a tincture from a famili- 
arity with that object, that every thing else, 
how remote soever, will be brought under 
the same view. A metaphysician will bring 
ploughing and gardening immediately to ab- 
stract notions : the history of nature shall 
signify nothing to him. An alchymist, on 
the contrary, shall reduce divinity to the 
maxims of his laboratory ; explain morality 
by sal, sulphur, and mercury ; and allegorize 
the Scripture itself, and the sacred mysteries 
thereof, into the philosopher's stone. And X 
heard once a man, who had a more than 
ordinary excellency in music, seriously ac- 
commodate Moses's seven days of the first 
week to the notes of music, as if from thence 
had been taken the measure and method of 
the creation. It is of no small consequence 
to keep the mind from such a possession, 



OP THE UNDERSTANDING. 51 

which I think is best done by giving it a fair 
and equal view of the whole intellectual 
world, wherein it may see the order, rank, 
and beauty of the whole, and give a just 
allowance to the distinct provinces of the 
several sciences in the due order and useful- 
ness of each of them. 

If this be that which old men will not think 
necessary, nor be easily brought to ; it is fit, 
at least, that it should be practised in the 
breeding of the young. The business of 
education, as I have already observed, is not, 
as I think, to make them perfect in any one 
of the sciences, but so to open and dispose 
their minds, as may best make them capable 
of any, when they shall apply themselves to 
it. If men are, for a long time, accustomed 
only to one sort or method of thoughts, their 
minds grow stiff in it, and do not readily turn 
to another. It is, therefore, to give them 
this freedom, that I think they should be 
made to look into all sorts of knowledge, and 
exercise their understandings in so wide a 
variety and stock of knowledge. But I do 
not propose it as a variety and stock of knowl- 
edge, but a variety and freedom of think- 
ing, as an increase of the powers and activi- 
ty of the mind, not as an enlargement of its 
possessions. 



58 OF THE CONIKJCT 

5)20. Reading. 

This is that which I think great readers are 
apt to be mistaken in. Those who have read 
of every thing, are thought to understand 
every thing too ; but it is not always so. 
Reading furnishes the mind only with materi- 
als of knowledge ; it is thinking makes what 
we read ours. We are of the ruminating 
kind, and it is not enough to cram ourselves 
with a great load of collections, unless we 
chew them over again, they will not give us 
strength and nourishment. There are, in- 
deed, in some writers visible instances of deep 
thoughts, close and acute reasoning, and ideas 
well pursued. The light these would give 
would be of great use, if their reader would 
observe and imitate them ; all the rest at 
best are but particulars fit to be turned into 
knowledge ; but that can be done only by 
our own meditation, and examining the reach, 
force, and coherence of what is said ; and 
then, as far as we apprehend and see the 
connexion of ideas, so far it is ours ; without 
that, it is but so much loose matter floating 
in our brain. The memory may be stored, 
but the judgment is little better, and the 
stock of knowledge not increased, by being 
able to repeat what others have said, or pro- 
duce the arguments we have found in them 
Such a knowledge as this is but knowledge by 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 59 

hearsay, and the ostentation of it is at best 
but talking by rote, and very often upon 
weak and wrong principles For all that is to 
be found in books is not built upon true foun- 
dations, nor always rightly deduced from the 
principles it is pretended to be built on. Such 
an examen as is requisite to discover that, 
every reader's mind is not forward to make ; 
especially in those who have given themselves 
up to a party, and only hunt for what they 
can scrape together, that may favour and 
support the tenets of it. Such men wilfully 
exclude themselves from truth, and from all 
true benefit to be received by reading. Others 
of more indifferency often want attention and 
industry. The mind is backward in itself to 
be at the pains to trace every argument to its 
original, and to see upon what basis it stands, 
and how firmly ; but yet it is this that gives 
so much the advantage to one man more 
than another in reading. The mind should by 
severe rules be tied down to this, at first, un- 
easy task ; use and exercise will give it facili- 
ty. So that those who are accustomed to it 
readily, as it were with one cast of the eye, 
take a view of the argument, and presently, 
in most cases, see where it bottoms. Those 
who have got this faculty, one may say, have 
got the true key of books, and the clue to 
lead them through the mizmaze of variety 
oi' opinions and authors to truth and certain- 



60 OF THE CONDUCT 

ty. This young beginners should be entered 
in, and showed the use of, that they may 
profit by their reading. Those who are stran- 
gers to it will be apt to think it too great a 
clog in the way of men's studies, and they 
will suspect they shall make but small pro- 
gress, if, in the books they read, they must 
stand to examine and unravel every argument, 
and follow it step by step up to its original. 

I answer, this is a good objection, and 
ought to weigh with those whose reading is 
designed for much talk and little knowledge, 
and I have nothing to say to it. But I am 
here inquiring into the conduct of the under- 
standing in its progress towards knowledge ; 
and to those who aim at that, I may say, that 
he who fair and softly goes steadily forward 
in a course that points right, will sooner be at 
his journey's end, than he that runs after 
every one he meets, though he gallop all day 
full-speed. 

To which let me add, that this way of 
thinking on, and profiting by, what we read, 
will be a clog and rub to any one only in 
the beginning : when custom and exercise 
have made it familiar it will be despatched, 
on most occasions, without resting or inter- 
ruption in the course of our reading. The 
motions and views of a mind exercised that 
way are wonderfully quick ; and a man used 
to such sort of reflections see as much at, 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 61 

one glimpse as would require a long discourse 
to lay before another, and make out in an en- 
tire and gradual deduction. Besides, that 
when the first difficulties are over, the delight 
and sensible advantage it brings, mightily en- 
courages and enlivens the mind in reading, 
which without this is very improperly called 
study. 

§21. Intermediate principles 

As an help to this, I think it may be proposed, 
that, for the saving the long progression of 
the thoughts to remote and first principles in 
every case, the mind should provide its sever- 
al stages ; that is to say, intermediate princi- 
ples, w r hich it might have recourse to in the 
examining those positions that come in its 
way. These, though they are not self-evi- 
dent principles, yet if they have been made 
out from them by a wary and unquestionable 
deduction, may be depended on as certain 
and infallible truths, and serve as unquestion- 
able truths to prove other points depending on 
them by a nearer and shorter view than re- 
mote and general maxims. These may serve 
as land-marks to show what lies in the direct 
way of truth, or is quite besides it. And thus 
mathematicians do, who do not in every new 
problem run it back to the first axioms, 
through all the whole train of intermediate 



62 OP THE CONDUCT 

propositions. Certain theorems, that they 
have settled to themselves upon sure demon- 
stration, serve to resolve to them multitudes 
of propositions which depend on them, and 
are as firmly made out from thence, as if the 
mind went afresh over every link of the whole 
chain that ties them to first self-evident prin- 
ciples. Only in other sciences great care is 
to he taken that they establish those interme- 
diate principles with as much caution, exact- 
ness, and indifTerency, as mathematicians use 
in the settling any of their great theorems. 
When this is not done, but men take up the 
principles in this or that science upon credit, 
inclination, interest, &lc. in haste, without due 
examination, and most unquestionable proof, 
they lay a trap for themselves, and as much as 
in them lies captivate their understandings to 
mistake, falsehood, and error. 

§ 22. Partiality. 

As there is a partiality to opinions, which, as 
we have already observed, is apt to mislead 
the understanding ; so there is often a partial- 
ity to studies, which is prejudicial also to 
knowledge and improvement. Those sciences, 
which men are particularly versed in, they are 
apt to value and extol, as if that part of know- 
ledge, which every one has acquainted him- 
self with, were that alone which was worth 



OP THE UNDERSTANDING. 63 

the having, and alj the rest were idle, and 
empty amusements, comparatively of no use 
or importance. This is the effect of ignorance 
and not knowledge, the being vainly puffed up 
with a flatulency, arising' from a weak and 
narrow comprehension. It is not amiss that 
every one should relish the science that he has 
made his peculiar study : a view of its beau- 
ties, and a sense of its usefulness, carries a 
man on with the more delight and warmth in 
the pursuit and improvement of it. But the 
contempt of all other knowledge, as if it were 
nothing in comparison of law or physic, of as- 
tronomy or chemistry, or perhaps some yet 
meaner part of knowledge, wherein I have 
got some smattering, or am somewhat advan- 
ced, is not only the mark of a vain or little 
mind ; but does this prejudice in the conduct 
of the understanding, that it coops it up with- 
in narrow bounds, and hinders it from looking 
abroad into other provinces of the intellectu- 
al world, more beautiful possibly, and more 
fruitful than that which it had till then labour- 
ed in ; wherein it might find, besides new 
knowledge, ways or hints whereby it might be 
enabled the better to cultivate its own. 

§ 23. Theology 

There is indeed one science (as they are now 
distinguished) incomparably above all the rest, 



64 OF THE CONDUCT 

where it is not by corruption narrowed into a 
trade of faction, for mean or ill ends, and 
secular interests ; I mean theology, which, 
containing the knowledge of God and his 
creatures, our duty to him and our fellow- 
creatures and a view of our present and fu- 
ture state, is the comprehension of all other 
knowledge directed to its true end ; i. e. the 
honour and veneration of the Creator, and 
the happiness of mankind. This is that noble 
study which is every man's duty, and every 
one that can be called a rational creature is 
capable of. The works of nature, and the 
words of revelation, display it to mankind in 
characters so large and visible, that those who 
are not quite blind may in them read, and see 
the first principles and most necessary parts 
of it ; and from thence, as they have time 
and industry, may be enabled to go on to the 
more abstruse parts of it, and penetrate into 
those infinite depths filled with the treasures 
of wisdom and knowledge. This is that sci- 
ence which would truly enlarge men's minds, 
were it studied, or permitted to be studied ev- 
ery where, with that freedom, love of truth 
and charity which it teaches, and were not 
made, contrary to its nature, the occasion of 
strife, faction, malignity, and narrow imposi- 
tions. I shall say no more here of this, but 
that it is undoubtedly a wrong use of my un- 
derstanding, to make it the rule and measur 



• 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 65 

a use which it is neither 
fit for, nor capable of. 

§ 24. Partiality. 

This partiality, where it is not permitted an 
authority to render all other studies insignifi- 
cant or contemptible, is often indulged so far 
as to be idied upon, and made use of in other 
parts of knowledge, to which it does not at all 
belong, and wherewith it has no manner of 
affinity. Some men have so used their heads 
to mathematical figures, that, giving a prefer- 
ence to the methods of that science, they in- 
troduce lines and diagrams into their study of 
divinity, or politic inquiries, as if nothing 
could be known without them ; and others, 
accustomed to retired speculations, run natu- 
ral philosophy into metaphysical notions, and 
the abstract generalities of logic ; and how 
often may one meet with religion and morali- 
ty treated of in the terms of the laboratory, 
and thought to be improved by the methods 
and notions of chemistry ? But he, that will 
take care of the conduct of his understand- 
ing to direct it right to the knowledge of 
things, must avoid those undue mixtures, and 
not by a fondness for what he has found useful 
and necessary in one, transfer it to another 
science, where it serves only to perplex and 
confound the understanding. It is a certain 
c2 



66 OF .THE CONDUCT 

truth, that res nolunt male administrari ; it is 
no less certain res nolunt male intelligi. Things 
themselves are to be considered as they are 
in themselves, and then they will show as in 
what way they are to be understood. For to 
have right conceptions about them, we must 
bring our understandings to the inflexible na- 
tures, and unalterable relations of things, and 
not endeavour to bring things to any precon- 
ceived, notions of our own. 

There is another partiality very commonly 
observable in men of study, no less prejudi- 
cial nor ridiculous than the former ; and that 
is a fantastical and wild-attributing all know- 
ledge to the ancients alone, or to the moderns 
This raving upon antiquity in matter of poe- 
try, Horace has wittily described and exposed 
in one of his satires. The same sort of mad- 
ness may be found in reference to all the 
other sciences. Some will not admit an opin- 
ion not authorised by men of old, who were 
then all giants in knowledge. Nothing is to 
be put into the treasury of truth or knowledge, 
Avhich has not the stamp of Greece or Rome 
upon it ; and, since their days, will scarce al- 
low that men have been able to see, think, or 
write. Others, with a like extravagancy, 
contemn all that the ancients have left us, and 
being taken with the modern inventions and 
discoveries, lay by all that went before, as if 
whatever is called old must have the decay of 



OF THE- UNDERSTANDING. 67 

time upon it, and truth too were liable to 
mould and rottenness. Men, I think, have 
been much the same for natural endowments 
in all times. Fashion, discipline, and educa- 
tion, have put eminent differences in the ages 
of several countries, and made one generation 
much differ from another in arts and sciences: 
but truth is always the same ; time alters it 
not, nor is it the better or worse for being of 
ancient or modern tradition. Many were 
eminent in former ages of the world for their 
discovery and delivery of it ; but though the 
knowledge they have left us be worth our 
study, yet they exhausted not all its treasure; 
they left a great deal for the industry and 
sagacity of after-ages, and so shall we. That 
was once new to them which any one now 
receives with veneration for its antiquity, nor 
was it the worse for appearing as a novelty ; 
and that which is now embraced for its new- 
ness will to posterity be old, but not thereby 
be less true or less genuine. There is no occa- 
sion, on this account, to oppose the ancients 
and the moderns to one another, or to be 
squeamish on either side. He that wisely 
conducts his mind in the pursuit of knowledge 
will gather what lights, and get what helps he 
can, from either of them, from whom they are 
best to be had, without adoring the errors, or 
rejecting the truths^ which he mav find ming- 
led in them 



68 OF THE CONDUCT 

Another partiality may be observed, in some 
to vulgar, in others to heterodox tenets: some 
are apt to conclude that what is the common 
opinion cannot but be true ; so many men's 
eyes they think cannot but see right ; so 
many men's understandings of all sorts can- 
not be deceived ; and, therefore, will net ven- 
ture to look beyond the received notions of 
the place and age, nor have so presumptuous 
a thought as to be wiser than their neighbours. 
They are content to go with the crowd, and 
so go easily, which they think is going right, 
or at least serves them as well. But, however 
vox pofwli vox Dei has prevailed as a maxim, 
yet I do not remember where ever God de- 
livered his oracles by the multitude, or nature 
truths by the herd. On the other side, some 
fly all common opinions as either false or 
frivolous. The title of many-headed beast is 
a sufficient reason to them to conclude that 
no truths of weight or consequence can be 
lodged there. Vulgar opinions are suited to 
vulgar capacities, and adapted to the ends of 
those that govern. He that will know the 
truth of things must leave the common and 
beaten track, which none but weak and ser- 
vile minds are satisfied to trudge along con- 
tinually in. Such nice palates relish nothing 
but strange notions quite out of the way: 
whatever is commonly received, has the mark 
of the beast on it ; and they think it a lessen- 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 69 

ing to them to hearken to it, or receive it ; 
their mind runs only after paradoxes ; these 
they seek, these they embrace, these alone 
they vent ; and so, as they think, distinguish 
themselves from the vulgar. But common or 
uncommon are not the marks to distinguish 
truth or falsehood, and therefore should not 
be any bias to us in our inquiries. We should 
not judge of things by men's opinions, but of 
opinions by things. The multitude reason 
but ill, and therefore may be well suspected, 
and cannot be relied on, nor should be follow- 
ed as a sure guide ; but philosophers, who 
have quitted the orthodoxy of the community, 
and the popular doctrines of their countries, 
have fallen into as extravagant and as absurd 
opinions as ever common reception counten- 
anced. Jt would be madness to refuse to 
breathe the common air, or quench one's 
thirst with water, because the rabble use them 
to these purposes : and if there are conven- 
iences of life which common use reaches not, 
it is not reason to reject them because they 
are not grown into the ordinary fashion of the 
country, and every villager doth not know 
them. 

Truth, whether in or out of fashion, is the 

measure of knowledge, and the business of 

the understanding ; whatsoever is besides 

that, however authorized by consent, or re- 

F 



70 OF THE CONDUCT 

commended by rarity, is nothing but lgno 
ranee, or something worse. 

Another sort of partiality there is, whereby 
men impose upon themselves, and by it make 
their reading little useful to themselves : I 
mean the making use of the opinions of wri- 
ters, and laying stress upon their authorities, 
wherever they find them to favour their own. 
opinions. 

There is nothing almost has done more 
harm to men dedicated to letters than giving 
the name of study to reading, and making a 
man of great reading to be the same with a 
man of great knowledge, or at least to be 
a title of honour. All that can be recorded 
in writing are only facts or reasonings. Facts 
are of three sorts ; 

1. Merely of natural agents, observable in 
the ordinary operations of bodies one upon 
another, whether in the visible course of 
things left to themselves, or in experiments 
made by men, applying agents and patients 
to one another, after a peculiar and artificial 
manner. 

2. Of voluntary agents, more especially 
the actions of men in society, which makes 
civil and moral history. 

3. Of opinions. 

In these three consists, as it seems to me, 
that which commonly has the name of learn- 
ing ; to which perhaps some may add a dis- 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 71 

tinct head of critical writings, which indeed 
at bottom is nothing but matter of fact ; and 
resolves itself into this, that such a man, or 
set of men, used such a word, or phrase, in 
such a sense i. e. that they made such sounds 
the marks of such ideas. 

Under reasonings I comprehend all the dis- 
coveries of general truths made by human 
reason, whether found by intuition, demon- 
stration or probable deductions. And this is 
that which is, if not alone knowledge, (be- 
cause the truth or probability of particular 
propositions may he known too) yet is, as 
may be supposed, most properly, the busi- 
ness of those who pretend to improve their 
understandings, and make themselves know- 
ing by reading. 

Books and reading are looked upon to be 
the great helps of the understanding, and in- 
struments of knowledge, as it must be allowed 
that they are ; and yet I beg leave to ques- 
tion whether these do not prove a hinderance 
to many, and keep several bookish men from 
attaining to solid and true knowledge. This, I 
think, I may be permitted to say, that there is 
no part wherein the understanding needs a more 
careful and wary conduct than in the use of 
books ; without which they will prove rather 
innocent amusements than profitable employ- 
ments of our time, and bring but small ad 
ditions to our knowledge. 



72 OF THE CONDUCT 

There is not seldom to be found, even 
among those who aim at knowledge, who with 
an unwearied industry employ their whole time 
in books, who scarce allow themselves time to 
eat or sleep, but read, and read, and read on, 
yet make no great advances in real knowl- 
edge, though there be no defect in their 
intellectual faculties, to which their little pro- 
gress can be imputed. The mistake here is, 
that it is usually supposed that by reading, the 
author's knowledge is transfused into the 
readers's understanding ; and so it is, but not 
by bare reading, but by reading and under- 
standing what he writ. Whereby I mean, 
not barely comprehending what is affirmed or 
denied in each proposition (though that great 
readers do not always think themselves con- 
cerned precisely to do,) but to see and follow 
the train of reasonings, observe the strength 
and clearness of their connexion, and examine 
upon what they bottom. Without this a man 
may read the discourses of a very rational 
author, writ in a language, and in propositions, 
that he very well understands, and yet ac- 
quire not one jot of his knowledge ; which 
consisting only in the perceived, certain, or 
probable connexion of the ideas made use of 
in his reasonings, the reader's knowledge is 
no farther increased than he perceives that ; 
so much as he sees of this connexion, so much 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 73 

he knows of the truth or probability of that 
author's opinions. 

All that he relies on without this perception, 
he takes upon trust upon the author's credit, 
without any knowledge of it at all. Tftis 
makes me not at all wonder to see some men 
so abound in citations, and build so much upon 
authorities, it being the sole foundation on 
which they bottom most of their own tenets ; 
so that, in effect, they have but a second- 
hand, or implicit knowledge, i. e. are in the 
right if such an one, from whom they borrow- 
ed it, were in the right in that opinion which 
they took from him ; which indeed is no know- 
ledge at all. Writers of this or former ages may 
be good witnesses of matters of fact which they 
deliver, which we may do well to take upon 
their authority ; but their credit can go no 
farther than this, it cannot at all affect the 
truth and falsehood of opinions, which have 
no other sort of trial but reason and proof, 
which they themselves made use of to make 
themselves knowing, and so must others too 
that will partake in their knowledge. Indeed 
it is 'In advantage that they have been at the 
pains to find out the proofs, and lay them in 
that order that may show the truth or proba- 
bility of their conclusions ; and for this we 
owe them great acknowledgements for saving 
us the pains in searching those proofs which 
they have collected for us, and which possi- 

H 



74 OP THE CONDUCT 

bly, after all our pains, we might not have 
found, nor been able to have set them in so 
good a light as that which they left them us 
in. — Upon this account we are mightily be- 
holden to judicious writers of all ages, for 
those discoveries and discourses they have left 
behind them for our instruction, if we know how 
to make a right use of them ; which is not to 
run them over in a hasty perusal, and perhaps 
lodge their opinions, or some remarkable pas- 
sages in our memories ; but to enter into their 
reasonings, examine their proofs, and then 
judge of the truth or falsehood, probability or 
improbability of what they advance ; not by 
any opinion we have entertained of the au- 
thor, but by the evidence he produces, and 
the conviction he affords us, drawn from things 
tnemselves. Knowing is seeing, and if it be 
so, it is madness to persuade ourselves that we 
do so by another man's eyes, let him use ever 
so many words to tell us, that what he asserts 
is very visible. Till we ourselves see it with 
our own eyes, and perceive it by our own un- 
derstandings, we are as much in the dark, and 
as void of knowledge as before, let us believe 
any learned author as much as we will. 

Euclid and Archimedes are allowed to be 
knowing, and to have demonstrated what they 
say ; and yet whoever shall read over their 
writings without perceiving the connexion of 
their proofs, and seeing what they show, though 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 75 

he may understand all their words, yet he is 
not the more knowing : he may believe in- 
deed, but does not know what they say, and 
so is not advanced one jot in mathematical 
knowledge by all his reading of those approv- 
ed mathematicians. 



§ 25. Haste. 

The eagerness and strong bent of the mind af- 
ter knowledge, if not warily regulated, is of- 
ten an hindrance to it. It still presses into 
farther discoveries and new objects, and catch- 
es at the variety of knowledge, and therefore 
often stays not long enough on what is before 
it, to look into it as it should, for haste to pur- 
sue what is yet out of sight. He that rides 
post through a country, may be able, from the 
transient view, to tell how in general the parts 
lie, and may be able to give some loose de- 
scription of here a mountain, and there a 
plain, here a morass, and there a river ; wood- 
land in one part, and savannahs in another. 
Such superficial ideas and observations as 
these he may collect ii galloping over it : but 
the more useful observations of the soil, 
plants, animals, and inhabitants, with their 
several sorts and properties, mii2>t necessarily 
escape him ; and it is seldom men ever dis- 
cover the rich mines, without some digging. 



76 OF THE CONDUCT 

Nature commonly lodges her treasures and 
jewels in rocky ground. If the matter be 
knotty, and the sense lies deep, the mind must 
stop and buckle to it, and stick upon it with 
labour and thought, and close contemplation, 
and not leave it till it has mastered the diffi- 
culty, and got possession of truth. But here 
care must be taken to avoid the other extreme: 
a man must not stick at every useless nicety, 
and expect mysteries of science in every tri- 
vial question or scruple that he may raise. 
He that will stand to pick up and examine ev- 
ery pebble that comes in his way, is as unlike- 
ly to return enriched and laden with jewels, as 
the other that travelled full speed. Truths 
are not the better nor the worse for their ob- 
viousness or difficulty, but their value is to be 
measured by their usefulness and tendency. 
Insignificant observations should not take up 
any of our minutes, and those that enlarge our 
view, and give light towards farther and use- 
ful discoveries, should not be neglected, though 
they stop our course, and spend some of our 
time in a fixed attention 

There is another haste that does often, and 
will mislead the mind if it be left to itself and 
its own conduct. The understanding is natu- 
rally forward, not only to learn its knowledge 
by variety (which makes it skip over one to 
get speedily to another part of knowledge) 
but also eager to enlarge its views, by running 



^.=~. 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 77 

too fast into general observations and conclu- 
sions, without a due examination of particu- 
lars enough whereon to found those general 
axioms. This seems to enlarge their stock, 
but it is of fancies, not realities ; such the- 
ories built upon narrow foundations stand but 
weakly, and, if they fall not of themselves, 
are at least very hardly to be supported 
against the assaults of opposition. — And thus 
men being too hasty to erect to themselves 
general notions and ill-grounded theories, find 
themselves deceived in their stock of know- 
ledge, when they come to examine their hastily 
assumed maxims themselves,ortohave them*at- 
tacked by others. General observations drawn 
from particulars, are the jewels of knowledge, 
comprehending great store in a little room ; 
but they are therefore to be made with the 
greater care and caution, lest if we take coun- 
terfeit for true, our loss and shame be the 
greater when our stock comes to a severe 
scrutiny. One or two particulars may suggest 
hints of inquiry, and they do well to take 
those hints ; but if they turn them into con- 
clusions, and make them presently general 
rules, they are forward indeed, but it is only 
to impose on themselves by propositions as- 
sumed for truths without sufficient warrant 
To make such observations, is, as has been 
already remarked, to make the head a maga- 
zine of materials, which can hardly ne called 
h2 



78 OF THE CONDUCT 

knowledge, or at least it is but like a collec- 
tion of lumber not reduced to use or order ; 
and he that makes every thing an observation, 
has the same useless plenty, and much more 
falsehood mixed with it. The extremes on 
both sides are to be avoided, and he will be 
able to give the best account of his studies 
who keeps his understanding in the right mean 
between them. 

§26. Anticipation. 

Whether it be a love of that which brings the 
first light and information to their minds, and 
want of vigour and industry to inquire ; or else 
that men content themselves with any appear- 
ance of knowledge, right or wrong ; which, 
when they have once got, they will hold fast : 
this is visible, that many men give themselves 
up to the first anticipations of their minds, and 
are very tenacious of the opinions that first 
possess them ; they are often as fond of their 
first conceptions as of their first born, and will 
by no means recede from the judgment they 
have once made, or any conjecture or conceit 
which they have once entertained. This is a 
fault in the conduct of the understanding, since 
this firmness, or rather stiffness of the mind, 
is not from an adherence to truth, but a sub- 
mission to prejudice. It is an unreasonable 
homage paid to prepossession, wdiereby we 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING, 79 

show a reverence not to (what we pretend to 
seek) truth, but what by hap-hazard we chance 
to light on, be it what it will. This is visibly 
a preposterous use of our faculties, and is a 
downright prostituting of the mind to resign it 
thus, and put it under the power of the first 
comer. This can never be allowed, or ought 
to be followed as a right way to knowledge, 
till the understanding (whose business it is to 
conform itself to what it finds in the objects 
without) can by its own opinionatry change 
that, and make the unalterable nature of things 
comply with its own hasty determinations, 
which will never be. Whatever we fancy, 
things keep their course ; and the habitudes, 
correspondences, and relations, keep the same 
to one another. 

§ 27. Resignation. 

Contrary to these, but by a like dangerous 
excess on the other side, are those who always 
resign their judgment to the last man they 
heard or read. Truth never sinks into these 
men's minds, nor gives any tincture to them, 
but cameleon-like, they take the colour of 
what is laid before them, and as soon lose and 
resign it to the next that happens to come in 
their way. The order wherein opinions are 
proposed or received by us, is no rule of their 
rectitude, nor ou«rht to be a cause of their pre- 



80 OF THE CONDUCT 

Terence. First or last in this case, is the ef- 
fect of chance, and not the measure of truth 
or falsehood. This every one must confess, 
and therefore should, in the pursuit of truth, 
keep his mind free from the influence of any 
such accidents. A man may as reasonably 
draw cuts for his tenets, regulate his persuasion 
the cast of a die, as take it up for its novelty, 
or retain it because it had his first assent, and 
he was never of another mind. Well-weigh- 
ed reasons are to determine the judgment ; 
those the mind should be always ready to 
hearken and submit to, and by their testimo- 
ny and suffrage, entertain or reject any tenet 
indifferently, whether it be a perfect stranger, 
or an old acquaintance. 

§ 28. Practice. 

Though the faculties of the mind are improv- 
ed by exercise, yet they must not be put to a 
stress beyond their strength. Quid valeant 
humeri, quid ferre recusent, must be made the 
measure of every one's understanding who has 
a desire not only to perform well, but to keep 
up the vigour of his faculties, and not to ba^lk 
his understanding by what is too hard for it. 
The mind, by being engaged in a task beyond 
its strength, like the body, strained by lifting 
at a weight too heavy, has often its force 
broken, and thereby gets an unaptness or an 



OP THE UNDERSTANDING. 81 

aversion to any vigorous attempt ever after 
A sinew cracked seldom recovers its former 
strength, or at least the tenderness of the 
sprain remains a good while after, and the 
memory of it longer, and leaves a lasting cau- 
tion in the man not to put the part quit kly 
again to any robust employment. So it hive* 
in the mind once jaded by an attempt above 
its power ; it either is disabled for the future, 
or else checks at any vigorous undertaking 
ever after, at least is very hardly brought to 
exert its force again on any subject that re- 
quires thought and meditation. The under- 
standing should be brought to the difficult and 
knotty parts of knowledge, that try the 
strength of thought, and a full bent of the 
mind by insensible degrees, and in such a 
gradual proceeding nothing is too hard for it. 
Nor let it be objected, that such a slow pro- 
gress will never reach the extent of some sci- 
ences. — It is not to be imagined how far con- 
stancy will carry a man ; however, it is better 
walking slowly in a rugged way, than to break 
a leg and be a cripple. He that begins with 
the calf may carry the ox ; but he that will at 
first go to take up an ox, may so disable him- 
self, as not be able to lift up a calf after that. 
When the mind, by insensible degrees, has 
brought itself to attention and close thinking, 
it will be able to cope with difficulties, and 
master them without any prejudice to itself, 



82 OF THE CONDUCT 

and then it may go on roundly. Every ab- 
struse problem, every intricate question, will 
not baffle, discourage, or break it. But 
though putting the mind unprepared upon an 
unusual stress, that may discourage or damp 
it for the future, ought to be avoided ; yet 
this must not run it, by an over-great shyness 
of difficulties, into a lazy sauntering about or- 
dinary and obvious things, that demand no 
thought or application. This debases and en- 
ervates the understanding, makes it weak and 
unfit for labour. This is a sort of hovering 
about the surface of things, without any in- 
sight into them or penetration ; and when the 
mind has been once habituated to this laxy re- 
cumbency and satisfaction on the obvious sur- 
face of things, it is in danger to rest satisfied 
there, and go no deeper, since it cannot do it 
without pains and digging. He that has for 
some time accustomed himself to take up with 
what easily offers itself at first view 3 has rea- 
son to fear he shall never reconcile himself to 
the fatigue of turning and tumbling of things in 
his mind, to discover their more retired and 
more valuable secrets. 

It is not strange that methods of learning, 
which scholars have been accustomed to in 
their beginning and entrance upon the sci- 
ences, should influence them all their lives, 
and be settled in their minds by an over-ru- 
ling reverence, especially if they be such as 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 83 

universal use has established. Learners must 
at first be believers, and their master's rules 
having been once made axioms to them, it is 
no wonder they should keep that dignity, and 
by the authority they have once got, mislead 
those who think it sufficient to excuse them, 
if they go out of their way in a well-beaten 
track. 

§29. Words. 

I have copiously enough spoken of the abuse 
of words in another place, and therefore shall 
upon this reflection, that the sciences are full 
of them, warn those that would conduct their 
understandings right not to take any term, 
howsoever authorized by the language of the 
schools, to stand for any thing till they have 
an idea of it. A word may be of frequent 
use, and great credit, with several authors, 
and be by them made use of as if it stood 
for some real being ; but yet, if he that reads 
cannot frame any distinct idea uf that being, 
it is certainly to him a mere empty sound 
without a meaning ; and he learns no more 
by all that is said of it, or attributed to it, 
than if it were affirmed only of that bare 
empty sound. They who would advance in 
knowledge, and not deceive and swell them- 
selves with a little articulated air, should lay 
down this as a fundamental rule, not to take 



84 OF THE CONDUCT 

words for things, nor suppose that names in 
books signify veal entities in nature, till they 
can frame clear and distinct ideas of those en- 
tities. It will not perhaps be allowed, if I 
should set down " substantial forms" and "in- 
tentional species," as such that may justly be 
suspected to be of this kind of insignificant 
terms : but this I am sure, to one that can 
form no determined ideas of what they stand 
for, they signify nothing at all ; and all that 
he thinks he knows about them is to him so 
much knowledge about nothing, and amounts 
at most but to a learned ignorance. It is 
not without all reason supposed that there are 
many such empty terms to be found in some 
learned writers, to which they had recourse 
to etch out their systems, where their under- 
standings could not furnish them with concep- 
tions from things. But yet I believe the sup- 
posing of some realities in nature, answering 
those and the like words, have much perplex- 
ed some, and quite misled others in the study 
of nature. That which in any discourse sig- 
nifies, " I know not what," should be consi- 
dered " I know not when." Where men 
have any conceptions, they can, if they are 
ever so abstruse or abstracted, explain them r 
and the terms they use for them. For our 
conceptions being nothing but ideas, which 
are all made up of simple ones, if they can- 
not give us the ideas their words stand for, it 



OF THE UNDERSTAxNDING. 85 

is plain they have none. To what purpose can 
it be to hunt after his conceptions who has 
none, or none distinct ? He that knew not 
what he himself meant by a learned term 
cannot make us know any thing by his use of 
it, let us beat our heads about it ever so 
long. Whether we are able to comprehend 
all the operations of nature, and the manners 
of them, it matters not to inquire ; but this is 
certain, that we can comprehend no more of 
them than we can distinctly conceive ; and 
therefore to obtrude terms where we have 
no distinct conceptions, as if they did con- 
tain, or rather conceal something, is but an 
artifice of learned vanity to cover a defect in 
a hypothesis or our understandings. Words 
are not made to conceal, but to declare 
and show something ; where they are by 
those, who pretend to instruct, otherwise used, 
they conceal indeed something ; but that 
which they conceal is nothing but the igno- 
rauce, error, or sophistry of the talker ; for 
there is, in truth, nothing else under them. 

§ 30. Wandering. 

That there is a constant succession and flux 
of ideas in our minds, I have observed in the 
former part of this Essay ; and every one 
may take notice of it in himself. This, I 
suppose, may deserve some part of our care 
G 



86 OF THE CONDUCT 

in the conduct of oar understandings ; and 
I think it may be of great advantage, if we 
can by use get that power over our minds, as 
to be able to direct that train of ideas, that 
so, since there will new ones perpetually come 
into our thoughts by a constant succession, 
we may be able by choice so to direct them, 
that none may come in view but such as are 
pertinent to our present inquiry, and in such 
order as may be most useful to the discovery 
we are upon ; or at least, if some foreign and 
unsought ideas will offer themselves, that yet we 
might be able to reject them, and keep them 
from taking off our minds from its present pur- 
suit, and hinder them from running away with 
our thoughts quite from the subject in hand. 
This is not, 1 suspect, so easy to be done as 

ferhaps may be imagined ; and yet, for aught 
know, this may be, if not the chief, yet one 
of the great differences that carry some men 
in their reasoning so far beyond others, where 
they seem to be naturally of equal parts. A 
proper and effectual remedy for this wander- 
ing of thoughts I would be glad to find. He 
that shall propose such an one, would do great 
service to the studious and contemplative 
part of mankind, and perhaps help unthink* 
ing men to become thinking. I must ac- 
knowledge that hitherto I have discovered no 
other way to keep our thoughts close to their 
business, but the endeavouring as much as we 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 87 

can, and by frequent attention and applica- 
tion, getting the habit of attention and appli- 
cation. He that will observe children will find, 
that even when they endeavour their utmost, 
they cannot keep their minds from straggling. 
The way to cure it, I am satisfied, is not 
angry chiding or beating, for that presently 
fills their heads with all the ideas that fear, 
dread, or confusion can ofTer to them. To bring 
back gently their wandering thoughts, by 
leading them into the path, and going before 
them in the train they should pursue, without 
any rebuke, r«r so much as taking notice 
(where it can be avoided) of their roving, I 
suppose w r ould sooner reconcile and inure 
them to attention than all those rougher me- 
thods which more distract their thought, and, 
hindering the application they would promote, 
introduce a contrary habit. 

§31. Distinction 

Distinction and division are (if I mistake 
not the import of the words) very different 
things ; the one being the perception of a 
difference that nature has placed in things ; 
the other, our making a division where there 
is yet none ; at least, if I may be permitted 
to consider them in this sense, I think I may 
say of them that one of them is the moist 
necessary and conducive to true knowledge 



88 OF THE CONDUCT 

that can be ; the other, when too much made 
use of, serves only to puzzle and confound 
the understanding. To observe every the 
least difference that is in things argues a quick 
and clear sight; and this keeps the understand- 
ing steady, and right in its way to knowledge. 
But though it be useful to discern every 
variety that is to be found in nature, yet it is 
not convenient to consider every difference 
that is in things, and divide them into dis- 
tinct classes under every such difference. 
This will run us, if followed, into particulars 
(for every individual has something that 
differences it from another,") and we shall 
be able to establish no general truths, or 
else at least shall be apt to perplex the mind 
about them. The collection of several 
things into several classes, gives the mind more 
general and larger views ; but we must take 
care to unite them only in that, and so far as 
they do agree ; for so far they may be uni- 
ted under the consideration : for entity itself, 
that comprehends all things, as general as it 
is, may afford us clear and rational concep- 
tions. If we would weigh and keep in our 
minds what it is we are considering, that would 
best instruct us when we should, or should not 
branch into farther distinctions, which are to 
be taken only from a due contemplation of 
things ; to which there is nothing more oppo- 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 89 

site than the art of verbal distinctions, made 
at pleasure in learned and arbitrarily invented 
terms, to be applied at a venture, without 
comprehending or conveying any distinct no- 
tions, and so altogether fitted to artificial talk, 
or empty noise in dispute, without any clear- 
ing of difficulties, or advance in knowledge. 
Whatsoever subject we examine and would 
get knowledge in, we should, I think, make 
as general and as large as it will bear ; nor 
can there be any danger of this, if the idea of 
it be settled and determined : for if that be so, 
we shall easily distinguish it from any other 
idea, though comprehended under the same 
name. For it is to fence against the entan- 
glements of equivocal words, and the great 
art of sophistry which lies in them, that dis- 
tinctions have been multiplied, and their use 
thought so necessary. But had every distinct 
abstract idea a distinct known name, there 
would be little need of these multiplied scho- 
lastic distinctions, though there would be nev- 
ertheless as much need still of the mind's ob- 
serving the differences that are in things, and 
discriminating them thereby one from anoth- 
er. It is not, therefore, the right way to 
knowledge, to hunt after, and fill the head 
with abundance of artificial and scholastic 
distinctions, wherewith learned men's writings 
are often filled ; we sometimes find what they 
treat of so divided and subdivided, that the 
i •> 



90 OF THE CONDUCT 

mind of the most attentive reader loses the 
sight of it, as it is more than probable the 
writer himself did ; for in things crumbled in- 
to dust, it is in vain to affect or pretend order, 
or expect clearness. To avoid confusion by 
too few or too many divisions, is a great skill 
in thinking as well as writing, which is but the 
copying our thoughts ; but what are the boun- 
daries of the mean between the two vicious 
excesses on both hands, I think is hard to set 
down in words : clear and distinct ideas is all 
that I yet know able to regulate it. But as to 
verbal distinctions received and applied to 
common terms, i. e. equivocal words ; they 
are more properly, I think, the business of 
criticisms and dictionaries than of real know- 
ledge and philosophy, since they, for the most 
part, explain the meaning of words, and give 
us their several significations. The dexterous 
management of terms, and being able to fend 
and prove with them, I know has, and does pass 
in the world for a great part of learning ; but 
it is learning distinct from knowledge ; for 
knowledge consists only in perceiving the hab- 
itudes and relations of ideas one to another, 
which is done without words ; the interven- 
tion of a sound helps nothing to it. And hence 
we see that there is least use of distinctions 
where there is most knowledge ; I mean in 
mathematics, where men have determined 
ideas without known names to them ; and so 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 91 

there being no room for equivocations, there 
is no need of distinctions. In arguing, the 
opponent uses as comprehensive and equivocal 
terms as he can to involve his adversary in 
the doubtfulness of his expressions : this is ex- 
pected, and therefore the answer on his side 
makes it his play to distinguish as much as he 
can, and thinks he can never do it too much ; 
nor can he indeed in that way wherein victo- 
ry may be had without truth and without 
knowledge. This seems to me to be the art 
of disputing. Use your words as captiously 
as you can in your arguing on one side, and 
apply distinctions as much as you can on the 
other side to every term, to nonplus your op- 
ponent ; so that in this sort of scholarship, 
there being no bounds set to distinguishing, 
some men have thought all acuteness to have 
lain in it : and therefore in all they have read 
or thought on, their great business has been 
to amuse themselves with distinctions, and 
multiply to themselves divisions, at least, more 
than the nature of the thing required. There 
seems to me, as I said, to be no other rule for 
this, but a due and right consideration of things 
as they are in themselves. He that has set- 
tled in his mind determined ideas, with names 
affixed to them, will be able both to discern 
their differences one from another, which 
is really distinguishing ; and, where the penu- 
ry of words affords not terms answering every 



92 OF THE CONDUCT 

distinct idea, will be able, to apply proper dis- 
tinguishing terms to the comprehensive and 
equivocal names he is forced to make use of. 
This is all the need I know of distinguishing 
terms ; and in such verbal distinctions, each 
term of the distinction, joined to that whose 
signification it distinguishes, is but a distinct 
name for a distinct idea. Where they are so, 
and men have clear void distinct conceptions 
that answer their verbal distinctions, they are 
right, and are pertinent as far as they serve 
to clear any thing in the subject under con- 
sideration. And this is that which seems to 
me the proper and only measure of distinc- 
tions and divisions ; which he that will con- 
duct his understanding right, must not look 
for in the acuteness of invention, nor the au- 
thority of writers, but will find only in the 
consideration of things themselves, whether he 
is led into it by his own meditations, or the 
information of books. 

An aptness to jumble things together, where- 
in can be found any likeness, is a fault in the 
understanding on the other side, which will 
not fail to mislead it, and by thus lumping of 
things, hinder the mind from distinct and ac- 
curate conceptions of them. 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 93 

§ 32. Similes. 

To which let me here add another near of kin 
to this, at least in name, and that is letting the 
mind upon the suggestion of any new notion, 
run immediately after similes to make it the 
clearer to itself ; which, though it may be a 
good way, and useful in the explaining our 
thoughts to others ; yet it is by no means a 
right method to settle true notions of any 
thing in ourselves, because similes always fail 
in some part, and come short of that exact- 
ness which our conceptions should have to 
things, if we would think aright. This in- 
deed makes men plausible talkers ; for those 
are always most acceptable in discourse who 
have the way to let their thoughts into other 
men's minds with the greatest ease and facili- 
ty ; whether those thoughts are well formed 
and correspond with things, matters not ; few 
men care to be instructed but at an easy rate. 
They, who in their discourse strike the fancy, 
and take the hearer's conceptions along with 
them as fast as their words flow, are the ap- 
plauded talkers, and go for the only men of 
clear thoughts. Nothing contributes so much 
to this as similes, whereby men think they 
themselves understand better, because they 
are the better understood. But it is one thing 
to think right, and another thing to know the 



94 OF THE CONDUCT 

right way to lay our thoughts before others 
with advantage and clearness, be they right 
or wrong. Well chosen similes, metaphors, 
and allegories, with method and order, do this 
the best of any thing, because being taken 
from objects already known, and familiar to 
the understanding, they are conceived as fast 
as spoken ; and the correspondence being 
concluded, the thing they are brought to ex- 
plain and elucidate is thought to be under- 
stood too. Thus fancy passes for knowledge, 
and what is prettily said is mistaken for sol- 
id. I say not this to decry metaphor, or 
with design to take away that ornament of 
speech ; my business here is not with rheto- 
ricians and orators, but with philosophers and 
lovers of truth ; to whom T would beg leave 
to give this one rule whereby to try whether, 
in the application of their thoughts to any 
thing for the improvement of their knowledge, 
they do in truth comprehend the matter be- 
fore them really such as it is in itself. The 
way to discover this is to observe, whether in 
the laying it before themselves or others, they 
make use only of borrowed representations 
and ideas foreign to the things which are ap- 
plied to it by way of accommodation, as 
bearing some proportion or imagined likeness 
to the subject under consideration. Figured 
and metaphorical expressions do well to illus- 
trate more abstruse and unfamiliar ideas which 



OT THE UNDERSTANDING. 95 

(lie mind is not yet thoroughly accustomed to : 
but then they must be made use of to illus- 
trate ideas that we already have, not to paint 
to us those which we yet have not. Such bor- 
rowed and allusive ideas may follow real and 
solid truth, to set it off wi-en found, but must 
by no means be set in its place, and taken 
for it. If all our search has yet reached no 
farther than simile and metaphor, we may as- 
sure ourselves we rather fancy than know, and 
are not yet penetrated into the inside and re- 
ality of the thing, be it what it will, but con- 
tent ourselves with what our imaginations, not 
things themselves, furnish us with. 

§ 33. Assent 

In the whole conduct of the understanding, 
there is nothing of more moment than to know 
when and where, and how far to give assent, 
and possibly there is nothing harder. It is very 
easily said and nobody questions it, that giving 
and with-holding our assent, and the degrees 
of it, should be regulated by the evidence 
which things carry with them ; and yet we see 
men are not the better for this rule ; some 
firmly embrace doctrines upon slight grounds, 
some upon no grounds, and some contrary to 
appearance : some admit of certainty, and are 
not to be moved in what they hold : others 
waver in every thing, and there want not 



96 OF THE CONDUCT 

those that reject all as uncertain. What then 
shall a novice, an inquirer, a stranger do in 
the case ? I answer, use his eyes. There is 
a correspondence in things, and agreement and 
disagreement in ideas, discernible in very dif- 
ferent degrees, and there are eyes in men to 
see them if they please, only their eyes may 
be dimmed or dazzled, and the discerning 
sight in them impaired or lost. Interest and 
passion dazzles ; the custom of arguing on 
any side, even against our persuasions, dims 
the understanding, and makes it by degrees 
lose the faculty of discerning clearly between 
truth and falsehood, and so of adhering to the 
right side. — It is not safe to play with error, 
and dress it up to ourselves or others in the 
shape of truth. The mind by degrees loses 
its natural relish of real solid truth, is recon- 
ciled insensibly to any thing that can be dres- 
sed up into any faint appearance of it ; and 
if the fancy be allowed the place of judgment 
at first in sport, it afterwards comes by use to 
usurp it, and what is recommended by this flat- 
terer (that studies but to please) is received for 
good. There are so manyways of fallacy, such 
arts of giving colours, appearances, and resem- 
blances by this court-dresser, the fancy, that 
he who is not wary to admit nothing but truth 
itself, very careful not to make his mind sub- 
servient to anything else, cannot but be caught. 
He that has a mind to believe, has half assent- 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 97 

ed already ; and he that, by often arguing 
against his own sense, imposes falsehood on 
others, is not far from believing himself. This 
takes away the great distance there is betwixt 
truth and falsehood ; it brings them almost to- 
gether, and makes it no great odds, in things 
that approach so near, which you take ; and 
when things are brought to that pass, passion 
or interest, Sec. easily and without being per- 
ceived, determine which shall be the right. 

§ 34. Indifferency . 

I have said above, that we should keep a 
perfect inditferency for all opinions, not wish 
any of them true, or try to make them appear 
so ; but being indifferent, receive and em- 
brace them according as evidence, and thai 
alone gives the attestation of truth. They 
that do thus, i. e. keep their minds indifferent 
to opinions, to be determined only by evi- 
dence, will always find the understanding has 
perception enough to distinguish between 
evidence and no evidence, betwixt plain 
and doubtful ; and if they neither give nor re- 
fuse their assent but by that measure, they 
will be safe in the opinions they have. Which 
being perhaps but few, this caution will have 
also this good in it, that it will put them upon 
considering, and teach them the necessity of 
examining more than they do ; without which 

K 



OS OF THE CONDUCT 

the mind is but a receptacle of inconsistencies, 
not the store-house of truths. They that do 
not keep up this indifFerency in themselves for 
all but truth, not supposed, but evidenced in 
themselves, put coloured spectacles before 
their eyes, and look on things through false 
glasses, and then think themselves excused in 
following the false appearances which they 
themselves put upon them. I do not expect 
that by this way the assent should in every one 
be proportioned to the grounds and clearness 
wherewith every truth is capable to be made 
out ; or that men should be perfectly kept 
from error : that is more than human nature 
can by any means be advanced to ; I aim at 
no such unattainable privilege ; I am only 
speaking of what they should do, who would 
deal fairly with their own minds, and make a 
right use of their faculties in the pursuit of 
truth ; we fail them a great deal more than 
they fail us. It is mismanagement more than 
want of abilities that men have reason to 
complain of, and which they actually do com- 
plain of in those that differ from them. He 
that by an indifFerency for all but truth suf- 
fers not his assent to go faster than his evi- 
dence, nor beyond it, will learn to examine, 
and examine fairly, instead of presuming, and 
nobody will be at a loss, or in danger for want 
of embracing those truths which are necessa- 
ry in his station and circumstances. In any 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 99 

other way but this, all the world are born to 
orthodoxy ; they imbibe at first the allowed 
opinions of their country and party, and so 
never questioning their truth, not one of a 
hundred ever examines. They are applauded 
for presuming they are in the right. He that 
considers, is a foe to orthodoxy, because possi- 
bly he may deviate from some of the received 
doctrines there. And thus men, without any 
industry or acquisition of their own, inherit lo- 
cal truths, (for it is not the same every where) 
and are inured to assent without evidence. 
This influences farther than is thought ; for 
what one of a hundred of the zealous bigots 
in all parties ever examined the tenets he is 
so stiff in, or ever thought it his business or 
duty so to do ? It is suspected of luke-warm- 
ness. to suppose it necessary, and a tendency 
to apostacy to go about it. And if a man can 
bring his mind once to be positive and fierce 
for positions whose evidence he has never 
once examined, and that in matters of great- 
est concernment to him ; what shall keep him 
from this short and easy way of being in the 
right in cases of le.,s moment ? Thus we are 
taught to clothe our minds as we do our bodies, 
after the fashion in vogue, and it is accounted 
fantasticalness, or something worse, not to do 
so. This custom (which who dares oppose) 
makes the short-sighted bigots, and the warier 
skeptics, as far as it prevails : and those that 



100 OF THE CONDUCT 

break from it are in danger of heresy : for 
taking the whole world, how much of it doth 
truth and orthodoxy possess together ? 
Though it is by the last alone (which has the 
good luck to be every where) that error and 
heresy are judged of : for argument and evi- 
dence signify nothing in the case, and excuse 
nowhere, but are sure to be borne dow r n in all 
societies by the infallible orthodoxy of the 
place. Whether this be the way to truth and 
right assent, let the opinions, that take place 
and prescribe in the several habitable parts of 
the earth, declare. I never saw any reason 
yet why truth might not be trusted on its own 
evidence : I am sure if that be not able to 
support it, there is no fence against error ; and 
then truth and falsehood are but names that 
stand for the same things. Evidence there- 
fore is that by which alone every man is (and 
should be) taught to regulate his assent, who 
is then, and then only, in the right way, when 
he follows it. 

Men deficient in knowledge are usually in 
one of these three states ; either wholly igno- 
rant, or as doubting of some proposition they 
have either embraced formerly or at present 
are inclined to ; or lastly, they do with assu- 
rance hold and profess without ever having ex- 
amined, and being convinced by well-grounded 
arguments. 

The first of these are in the best state of 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 101 

the three, by having their minds yet in their 
perfect freedom and indifferency ; the likelier 
to pursue truth the better, having no bias yet 
clapped on to mislead them 

§35. 

For ignorance, with an indifferency for truth, 
isnearertoitthan opinion with ungrounded in- 
clination, which is the great source of error ; 
and they are more in danger to go out of the 
way who are marching under the conduct of a 
guide, that it is a hundred to one will mislead 
them, than he that has not yet taken a step, 
and is likelier to be prevailed on to inquire af- 
ter the right way. The last of the three sorts 
are in the worst condition of all ; for if a man 
can be persuaded and fully assured of any- 
thing for a truth, without having examined, 
what is there that he may not embrace for 
truth ? and if he has given himself up to be- 
lieve a lie, what means is there left to recover 
one who can be assured without examining ? 
To the other two this I crave leave to say, 
that as he that is ignorant is in the best state of 
the two, so he should pursue truth in a method 
suitable to that state ; i. e. by inquiring di- 
rectly into the nature of the thing itself, with- 
out minding the opinions of others, or troub- 
ling himself with their questions or disputes 
about it ; but to see what he himself can, sin- 
H 



i02 OF THE CONDUCT 

cerely searching for truth, find out. He that 
proceeds on other principles in his inquiry in- 
to any sciences, though he he resolved to ex- 
amine them and judge of them freely, does yet 
at least put himself on that side, and post him- 
self in a party which he will not quit till he 
be beaten out ; by which the mind is insensibly 
engaged to make what defence it can, and so 
is unawares biassed. I do not say but a man 
should embrace some opinion when he has ex- 
amined, else he examines to no purpose ; but 
the surest and safest way is to have no opin- 
ion at all till he has examined, and that with- 
out any the least regard to the opinions or sys- 
tems of other men about it. For example, 
were it my business to understand physic, 
would not the safe and readier way be to con- 
sult nature herself, and inform myself in the 
history of diseases and their cures, than es- 
pousing the principles of the dogmatists, meth- 
odists, or chymists, to engage in all the dis- 
putes concerning either of those systems, and 
suppose it to be true, till I have tried what 
they can say to beat me out of it ? Or sup- 
posing that Hippocrates, or any other book, 
infallibly contains the whole art of physic, 
would not the direct way be to study, read, 
and consider that book, weigh and compare 
the parts of it to find the truth, rather than 
espouse the doctrines of any party ? who, 
though they acknowledge his authority, have 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 103 

already interpreted and wiredrawn all his text 
to their own sense ; the tincture whereof, 
when I have imbibed, I am more in danger to 
misunderstand his true meaning, than if I had 
come to him with a mind unprepossessed by 
doctors and commentators of my sect ; whose 
reasonings, interpretation, and language, which 
I have been used to, will of course make alj 
chime that way, and make another, and per- 
haps the genuine meaning of the author seem 
harsh, strained, and uncouth to me. For 
words having naturally none of their own, car- 
ry that signification to the hearer that he is 
used to put upon them, whatever be the sense 
of h':n that uses them. This, I think, is visi- 
bly so ; and if it be, he that begins to have any 
doubt of any of his tenets, which he received 
without examination, ought, as much as he 
can, to put himself wholly into this state of ig- 
norance in reference to that question ; and 
thro wii lg wholly by all his former notions, and 
the opinions of others, examine, with a per- 
fect indiflerency, the question in its source ; 
without any inclination to either side, or any 
regard to his or others' unexamined opinion*. 
This I own is no easy thing to do ; but I am 
not enquiring the easy way to opinion, but the 
right way to truth ; which they must follow 
who will deal fairly with their own understand- 
ings and their own souls. 



104 OF THE CONDUCT 

§ 36. Question. 

The indifferency that I here propose will 
also enable them to state the question right, 
which they are in doubt about, without which 
they can never come to a fair and clear de- 
cision of it. 

m 

§ 37. Perseverance. 

Another fruit from this indifferency, and 
the considering things in themselves abstract 
from our own opinions and other men's no- 
tions and discourses on them, will be, that 
each man will pursue his thoughts in that 
method which will be most agreeable to the 
nature of the thing, and to his apprehension 
of what it suggests to him ; in which he ought 
to proceed with regularity and constancy, un- 
til he come to a well-grounded resolution 
wherein he may acquiesce. If it be objected 
that this will require every man to be a schol- 
ar, and quit all his other business, and betake 
himself wholly to study ; I answer, I propose 
no more to any one than he has time for. 
Some men's state and condition requires no 
great extent of knowledge ; the necessary 
provision for life swallow r s the greatest part of 
their time. But one man's want of leisure is 
no excuse for the ositancy and ignorance of 
those who have time to spare ; and every one 



OF THE UNDERSTAND TNG, 105 

has enough to get as much knowledge as is 
required and expected of him, and he that 
does not that-, is in love with ignorance, and is 
accountable for it. 

§ 38. Presumption. 

The variety of distempers in men's minds is 
as great as of those in their bodies ; some are 
epidemic, few escape them ; and every one 
too, if he would look into himself, would find 
tome defect of his particular genius. There is 
scarce any one without some idiosyncrasy that 
he suffers by. This man presumes upon his 
parts, that they will not fail him at time of 
need ; and so thinks it superfluous labour to 
make any provision beforehand. His under- 
standing is to him like Fortunatus's purse, 
which is always to furnish him, without ever 
putting any thing into it before-hand ; and so 
he sits still satisfied, without endeavouring to 
store his understanding with knowledge. It is 
the spontaneous product of the country, and 
what need of labour in tillage ? Such men 
may spread their native riches before the ig- 
norant ; but they were best not come to stress 
and trial with the skilful. We are born ig- 
norant of every thing. The superficies of 
things that surround them make impressions 
on the negligent, but nobody penetrates into 
the inside without labour, attention, and mdus- 



106 OP THE CONDUCT 

try. Stones and timber grow of themselves, 
but yet there is no uniform pile with symme- 
try and convenience to lodge in without toil 
and pains. God has made the intellectual 
world harmonious and beautiful without us ; 
but it wiil never come into our heads all at 
once ; we must bring it home peice-meal, and 
there set it up by our own industry, or else 
we shall have nothing but darkness and a 
chaos within, whatever order and light there 
be in things without us. 

§ 39. Despondency. 

On the other side, there are others that de- 
press their own minds, despond at the first 
difficulty, and conclude that the getting an in- 
sight in any of the sciences, or making any 
progress in knowledge farther than serves 
their ordinary buisiness, is above their capa- 
cities. These sit still, because they think 
they have not legs to go as the others I last 
mentioned do, because they think they have 
wings to fly, and can soar on high when they 
please. To these latter one may for answer 
apply the proverb, " Use legs and have legs." 
Nobody knows what strength of parts he has 
till he has tried them. And of the under- 
standing one may most truly say, that its 
force is greater generally than it thinks, till 
it is put to it. Viresqite aeqmrit eundo. 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 107 

And therefore the proper remedy here is 
but to set the mind to work, and apply the 
thoughts vigorously to the business ; for it 
holds in the struggles of the mind as in those 
of war, " Dum putant se vincere vicere ;" v a 
persuasion that we shall overcome any diffi- 
culties that we meet with in the sciences, sel- 
dom fails to carry us through them. Nobody 
knows the strength of his mind, and the force 
of steady and regular application, till he has 
tried. This is certain, he that sets out upon 
weak legs will not only go farther, but grow 
stronger too, than one who, with a vigorous 
constitution and firm limbs, only sitsstill. 

Something of kin to this men may observe 
in themselves, when the mind frights itself (as 
it often does) with any thing reflected on in 
gross, and transiently viewed confusedly, and 
at a distance. Things thus offered to the 
mind carry the show of nothing but difficulty 
in them, and are thought to be wrapt up in 
impenetrable obscurity. But the truth is, 
these are nothing but spectres that the under- 
standing raises to itself to flatter its own lazi- 
ness. It sees nothing distinctly in things re- 
mote, and in a huddle ; and therefore con- 
cludes too faintly, that there is nothing more 
clear to be discovered in them. It is but to ap- 
proach nearer, and that mist of our own rais- 
ing that enveloped them will remove ; and 
those that in that mist appeared hideous giants 



108 OF THE CONDUCT 

not to be grappled with, will be found to be 
of the ordinary and natural size and shape. 
Things, that in a remote and confused view 
seem very obscure, must be approached by 
gentle aKid regular steps ; and what is most 
visible, easy, and obvious in them first con- 
sidered. Reduce them into their distinct 
parts ; and then in their due order bring all 
that should be known concerning every one 
of those parts into plain and simple questions ; 
and then what was thought obscure, perplex- 
ed, and too hard for our weak parts, will lay 
itself open to the understanding in a fair view, 
and let the mind into that which before it was 
awed with, and kept at a distance from, as 
wholly mysterious. I appeal to my reader's 
experience, whether this has never happened 
to him, especially when, busy on one thing, he 
has occasionally reflected on another. I ask 
him whether he has never thus been scared 
with a sudden opinion of mighty difficulties, 
which yet have vanished, when he has serious- 
ly and methodically applied himself to the 
consideration of this seeming terrible subject, 
and there has been no other matter of aston- 
ishment left, but that he amused himself with 
so discouraging a prospect, of his own raising, 
about a matter which in the handling was 
found to have nothing in it more strange nov 
intricate than several other things which he 
had long since and with ease mastered ? This 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 109 

experience would teach us how to deal with such 
bugbears another time, which shouid rather 
serve to excite our vigour than enervate our 
industry. The surest way for a learner in this, 
as in all other cases, is not to advance by jumps 
and large strides ; let that which he sets him- 
self to learn next be indeed the next ; i. e. as 
nearly conjoined with what he knows already 
as is possible ; let it be distinct but not remote 
from it : let it be new, and what he did not 
know before, that the understanding may ad- 
vance ; but let it be as little at once as may 
be, that its advances may be clear and sure. 
All the ground that it gets this way it will 
hold. This distinct gradual growth in knowl- 
edge is firm and sure ; it carries its own light 
with it in every step of its progression, in 
an easy and orderly train ; than which there 
is nothing of more use to the understanding. 
And though this perhaps may seem a very 
slow and lingering way to knowledge, yet I 
dare confidently affirm, that whoever will try 
it in himself, or any one he will teach, shall find 
the advances greater in this method than 
they would in the same space of time have 
been in any other he could have taken. The 
greatest part of true knowledge lies in a dis- 
tinct perception of things in themselves dis- 
tinct. And some men give more clear light 
and knowledge by the bare distinct stating of a 

L 



110 OP THE CONDUCT 

question, than others by talking of it in gross 
whole hours together. In this, they who so 
state a question do no more but separate and 
disentangle the parts of it one from another, 
and lay them, when so disentangled, in their 
due order. This often, without any more ado, 
resolves the doubt, and shews the mind where 
the truth lies. The agreement or disagree- 
ment of the ideas in question, when they are 
once separated and distinctly considered, is, in 
many cases, presently perceived, and thereby 
clear and lasting knowledge gained ; whereas 
things in gross taken up together, and so lying 
together in confusion, can produce in the mind 
but a confused, which in effect is no knowl- 
edge ; or at least, when it comes to be exam- 
ined and made use of, will prove little better 
than none. I therefore take the liberty to 
repeat here again w r hat I have said elsewhere, 
that in learning any thing as little should be 
proposed to the mind at once as is possible ; 
and, that being understood and fully mastered, 
to proceed to the next adjoining part yet un- 
known, simple, unperplexed proposition be- 
longing to the matter in hand, and tending to 
the clearing what is principally designed. 

§ 40. Analogy. 

Analogy is of great use to the mind in many 
cases, especially in natural philosophy ; and 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 1 1 1 

thai part of it chiefly which consists in happy 
and successful experiments. But here we 
must take care that we keep ourselves within 
that wherein the analogy consists. For ex- 
ample, the acid oil of vitriol is found to be 
good in such a case, therefore the spirit of ni- 
tre or vinegar may be used in the like case. 
If the good effect of it be owing wholly to the 
acidity of it, the trial may be justified ; but if 
there be something else besides the acidity in 
the oil of vitriol which produces the good we 
desire in the case, we mistake that for analo- 
gy, which is not, and suffer our understand- 
ing to be misguided by a wrong supposition of 
analogy where there is none 

§ 41. Association. 

Though I have, in the second book of my Es- 
say concerning Human Understanding, treated 
of the association of ideas ; yet having done 
it there historically, as giving a view of the 
understanding in this as well as its several 
other ways of operating, rather than designing 
there to inquire into the remedies that ought 
to be applied to it ; it will under this latter 
consideration, afford other matter of thought 
to those who have a mind to instruct them- 
selves thoroughly in the right way of con- 
ducting their understandings ; and that the 
rather, because this, if I mistake not, is as 



112 OF THE CONDUCT 

frequent a cause of mistake and error in us as 
perhaps any thing else that can be named, and 
is a disease of the mind as hard to be cured as 
any ; it being a very hard thing to convince 
any one that things are not so, and naturally 
so, as they constantly appear to him. 

By this one easy and unheeded miscarriage 
of the understanding, sandy and loose founda- 
tions become infallible principles, and will not 
suffer themselves to be touched or questioned: 
such unnatural connexions become by custom 
as natural to the mind as sun and light, fire 
and warmth go together, and so seem to carry 
with them as natural an evidence as self-evi- 
dent truths themselves. And where then shall 
one with hopes of success begin the cure ? 
Many men firmly embrace falsehood for truth, 
not only because they never thought otherwise, 
but also because, thus blinded as they have 
been from the beginning, they never could 
think otherwise, at least without a vigour of 
mind able to contest the empire of habit, and 
look into its own principles ; a freedom which 
few men have the notion of in themselves, and 
fewer are allowed the practice of by others ; 
it being the great art andbusiness of the teach- 
ers and guides in most sects to suppress, as much 
as they can, this fundamental duty which every 
man owes himself, and is the first steady step 
towards right and truth in the whole train of 
bis actions and opinions. This would give one 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 1 i 3 

reason to suspect that such teachers are con- 
scious to themselves of the falsehood or weak- 
ness of the tenets they profess, since they will 
not suffer the grounds whereon they are built 
to be examined : whereas those who seek 
truth only, and desire to own and propagate 
nothing else, freely expose their principles to 
the test, are pleased to have them examined, 
give men leave to reject them if they can ; 
and if there be any thing weak and unsound 
in them, are willing to have it detected, that 
they themselves as well as others, may not lay 
any stress upon any received proposition be- 
yond what the evidence of its truths will war- 
rant and allow. 

There is, I know, a great fault among all 
sorts of people of principling their children 
and scholars, which at last, when looked into, 
amounts to no more but making them imbibe 
their teacher's notions and tenets by an im 
plicit faith, axd firmly to adhere to them 
whether true or false. What colours may be 
given to this, op of what use it may be when 
practised upon the vulgar, destined to labour, 
and given up to the service of their bellies, I 
will not here inquire. But as to the ingenu- 
ous part of mankind, whose condition allows 
them leisure, and letters, and inqury after 
truth, I can see no other right way of penci- 
ling them but to take heed, as much as may 
be, that in their tender years ideas that have 



114 OF THE CONDUCT 

no natural cohesion come not to be united in 
their heads ; and that this rule be often incul- 
cated to them to be their guide in the whole 
course of their lives and studies, viz. that they 
never suffer any ideas to be joined in their un- 
derstandings in any other or stronger combina- 
tion than what their own nature and corres- 
pondence give them, and that they often ex- 
amine those that they find linked together in 
their minds, whether this association of ideas 
be from the visible agreement that is in the 
ideas themselves, or from the habitual and 
prevailing custom of the mind joining them 
thus together in thinking. 

This is for caution against this evil, before it 
be thoroughly rivetted by custom in the under- 
standing ; but he that would cure it when 
habit has established it, must nicely observe 
the very quick and almost imperceptible mo- 
tions cf the mind in its habitual actions. 
What I have said in another place about the 
change of the ideas of sense into those of 
judgment, may be proof of this. Let any one 
not skilled in painting be told, when he sees 
bottles, and tobacco-pipes, and other things so 
painted as they are in some places shown, 
that he does not see protuberances, and you 
will not convince him but by the touch: he will 
not believe that by an instantaneous legerde- 
main of his own thoughts, one idea is substi- 
tuted for another. How frequent instances 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 115 

may one meet with of this in the arguings of 
the learned, who not seldom, in two ideas 
that they have been accustomed to join in 
their minds, substitute one for the other ; and, 
I am apt to think, often without perceiving it 
ihemselves ? This, whilst they are under the 
deceit of it, makes them incapable of convic- 
tion, and they applaud themselves as zealous 
champions for truth, when indeed, they are 
contending for error. And the confusion of 
two different ideas, which a customary con- 
nexion of them in their minds hath made to 
them almost one, fills their head with false 
views, and their reasonings with false con- 
sequences. 

§ 42. Fallacies. 

Right understanding consists in the discovery 
and adherence to truth, and that in the per- 
ception of the visible or probable agreement 
or disagreement of ideas, as they are affirmed 
and denied one of another. From whence it 
is evident, that the right use and conduct of 
the understanding, whose business is purely 
truth and nothing else, is, that the mind should 
be kept in a perfect indifferency, not incli- 
ning to either side, any farther than evidence 
settles it by knowledge, or the over-balance of 
probability gives it the turn of assent, and be- 
lief ; but yet it is very hard to meet with any 



116 OF THE CONDUCT 

discourse wherein one may not perceive 
the author not only maintain (for that is 
reasonable and fit) but inclined and biassed 
to one side of the question, with marks of 
a desire that that should be true. If it be 
asked me, how authors who have such a bias 
and lean to it may be discovered? I answer, by 
observing how in their writings or arguings they 
are often led by their inclinations to change 
the ideas of the question, either by changing the 
terms, or by adding and joining others to them, 
whereby the ideas under consideration are so 
varied as to be more serviceable to their pur- 
pose, and to be thereby brought to an easier 
and nearer agreement, or more visible or re- 
moter disagreement one with another. This 
is plain and direct sophistry ; but I am far 
from thinking that wherever it is found it is 
made use of with design to deceive and mis- 
lead the readers. It is visible that men's pre- 
judices and inclinations by this way impose of- 
ten upon themselves ; and their affection for 
truth, under their prepossession in favour of 
one side, is the very thing that leads them 
from it. Inclination suggests and slides into 
their discourse favourable terms, which intro- 
duce favourable ideas ; till at last, by this 
means, that is concluded clear and evident, 
thus dressed up, which taken in its native 
state, by making use of none but the precise 
determined ideas, would find no admittance at 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 117 

all. The putting these glosses on what they 
affirm ; these as they are thought, handsome, 
easy, and graceful explications of what they 
are discoursing on, is so much the character of 
what is called and esteemed writing well, that 
it is very hard to think that authors will ever 
be persuaded to leave what serve so well to 
propagate their opinions, and procure them- 
selves credit in the world, for 'a more jejune 
and dry way of writing, by keeping to the 
same terms precisely annexed to the same 
ideas ; a sour and blunt stiffness, tolerable in 
mathematicians only, who force their way, and 
make truth prevail by irresistible demonstra- 
tion. 

But yet if authors cannot be prevailed with 
to quit the looser, though more insinuating 
w r ays of writing : if they will not think fit to 
keep close to truth and instruction by unva- 
ried terms, and plain unsophisticated argu- 
ments ; yet it concerns readers not to be im- 
posed on by fallacies, and the prevailing ways 
of insinuation. To do this, the surest and most 
effectual remedy is to fix in the mind the clear 
and distinct ideas of the question stripped of 
words ; and so likewise in the train of argu- 
mentation, to take up the author's ideas, neg- 
lecting his words, observing how they connect 
or separate those in the question. He that 
does this will be able to cast off all that is su- 
perfluous ; he will see what is pertinent, what 



118 OF THE CONDUCT 

coherent, what is direct to, what slides by ths 
question. This will readily show him all the 
foreign ideas in the discourse, and where they 
were brought in ; and though they perhaps 
dazzled the writer, yet he will perceive that 
they give no light nor strength to his reasonings. 
This though it be the shortest and easiest 
way of reading books with profit, and keep- 
ing one's self from being misled by great 
names or plausible discourses ; yet it being 
hard and tedious to those who have not accus- 
tomed themselves to it, it is not to be expected 
that every one (among those few who really 
pursue truth") should this way guard his under- 
standing from being imposed on by the wilful, 
or at least undesigned sophistry, which creeps 
into most of the books of argument. They, 
that write against their conviction, or that, 
next to them, are resolved to maintain the te- 
nets of a party they are engaged in, cannot 
be supposed to reject any arms that may help 
to defend their cause, and therefore such 
should be read with the greatest caution. 
And they who write for opinions they are sin- 
cerely persuaded of, and believe to be true, 
think they may so far allow themselves to 
indulge their laudable affection to truth, as to 
permit their esteem of it to give it the best col- 
ours, and set it off with the best expressions and 
dress they can, thereby to gain it the easi- 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. \\9 

est entrance into the minds of their readers, 
and fix it deepest there. 

One of those being the state of mind we 
may justly suppose most writers to be in, it w 
fit their readers, who apply to them for in- 
struction, should not lay by that caution which 
becomes a sincere pursuit of truth, and should 
make them always watchful against whatever 
might conceal or misrepresent it. If they have 
not the skill of representing to themselves the 
author's sense by pure ideas separated from 
sounds, and thereby divested of the false lights 
and deceitful ornaments of speech, this yet they 
should do, they should keep the precise ques- 
tion steadily in their minds, carry it along with 
them through the whole discourse, and suffer 
not the least alteration in the terms, either by 
addition, subtraction, or substituting any other. 
This every one can do who has a mind to it; and 
he that has not a mind to it, it is plain, makes 
his understanding only the warehouse of other 
men's lumber ; I mean false and unconcluding 
reasonings, rather than a repository of truth 
for his own use ; which will prove substantial, 
and stand him instead, when he has occassion 
for it. And whether such an one deals fairly 
by his own mind, and conducts his own under- 
standing right, I leave to his own understand- 
ing to judge 



V20 OF THE CONDUCT 

§ 43. Fundamental Verities. 

The mind of man being very narrow, and so 
slow in making acquaintance with things, and 
taking in new truths, that no one man is ca- 
pable, in a much longer life than ours, to know 
all truths ; it becomes our prudence, in our 
search after knowledge, to employ our thoughts 
about fundamental and material questions, 
carefully avoiding those that are trifling, and 
not suffering ourselves to be diverted from our 
main even purpose, by those that are merely 
incidental. How much of many young men's 
time is thrown away in purely logical inqui- 
ries, I need not mention. This is no better 
than if a man, who was to be a painter, should 
spend all his time in examining the threads of 
the several cloths he is to paint upon, and 
counting the hairs of each pencil and brush he 
intends to use in the laying on of his colours. 
Nay, it is much worse than for a young painter 
to spend his apprenticeship in such useless ni- 
ceties ; for he, at the end of all his pains to no 
purpose, finds that it is not painting, nor any 
help to it, and so is really to no purpose: 
whereas men designed for scholars have often 
their heads so filled and warmed with disputes 
on logical questions, that they take those airy 
useless notions for real and substantial knowl- 
edge, and think their understandings so well 
furnished with science, that they need not look 






OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 121 

any farther into the nature of things, or des- 
cend to the mechanical drudgery of experi- 
ment and inquiry. This is so obvious a mis- 
management of the understanding, and that in 
the professed way to knowledge, that it could 
not be passed by ; to which might be joined 
abundance of questions, and the way of hand- 
ling of them in the schools. What faults in par- 
ticular of this kind every man is, or may be 
guilty of, would be infinite to enumerate ; it 
suffices to have shown that superficial and 
slight discoveries and observations that contain 
nothing of moment in themselves, nor serve as 
clues to lead us into farther knowledge, should 
not be thought worth our searching after. 

There are fundamental truths that lie at the 
bottom, the basis upon which a great many 
others rest, and in which they have their con- 
sistency. These are teeming truths, rich in 
store, with which they furnish the mind, and, 
like the lights of heaven, are not only beauti- 
ful and entertaining in themselves, but give 
light and evidence to other things, that without 
them could not be seen or known. Such is 
that admirable discovery of Mr. Newton, that 
all bodies gravitate to one another, which may 
be counted as the basis of natural philoso- 
phy ; which of what use it is to the under- 
standing of the great frame of our solar sys- 
tem, he has to the astonishment of the learn- 
ed world shown ; and how much farther it would 

M 



122 OF THE CONDUCT 

guide us in other things if rightly pursued, 
is not yet kiown. Our Saviour's great rule, 
that " we should love oar neighbour as our- 
selves," is such a fundamental truth for the 
regulating human society, that, I think, by 
that alone, one might without difficulty deter- 
mine all the cases and doubts in social morality. 
These and such as these are the truths we 
should endeavour to find out, and store our 
minds with. Which leads me to another thing in 
the conduct of the understanding that is no less 
necessary, viz. 



§ 44. Bottoming. 

To accustom ourselves, in any question propo- 
sed, to examine and find out upon what it bot- 
toms. Most of the difficulties that come in 
our way, when well considered and traced, 
lead us to some proposition, which, known to 
be true, clears the doubt, and gives an easy 
solution of the question ; whilst topical and 
superficial arguments, of which there is store 
to be found on both sides, filling the head with 
variety of thoughts, and the mouth with co- 
pious discourse, serve only to amuse the un- 
derstanding, and entertain company, without 
coming to the bottom of the question, the 
only place of rest and stability for an inquisi- 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 123 

tive mind, whose tendency is only to truth and 
knowledge. 

For example, if it be demanded, whether 
the Grand Seignor can lawfully take what he 
will from any of his people ? This question 
cannot be resolved without comiri£ to a cer- 
tainty, whether all men are naturally equal ; 
for upon that it turns ; and that truth well 
settled in the understanding, and carried in 
the mind through the various debates concer- 
ning the various rights of men in society, will go 
a great way in putting an end to them, and 
showing on which side the truth is. 

§ 45. Transfenng of thoughts. 

There is scarce any thing more for the im- 
provement of knowledge, for the ease of life, 
and for the dispatch of business, than for a 
man to be able to dispose of his own thoughts ; 
and there is scarce any thing harder in the 
whole conduct of the understanding than to 
^et a full mastery over it. The mind, in a 
waking man, has always some object that it 
applies itself to ; which, when we are lazy or 
unconcerned, we can easily change, and at 
pleasure transfer our thoughts to another, and 
from thence to a third, which has no relation 
to either of the former. Hence men forward- 
ly conclude, and frequently say, nothing is so 
free as thought, and it were well it were so ; but 



124 OF THE CONDUCT 

the contrary will be found true in several in- 
stances ; and there are many cases wherein 
there is nothing more resty and ungovernable 
than our thoughts : they will not be directed 
what objects to pursue, nor be taken off from 
those they have once fixed on ; but run away 
with a man in pursuit of those ideas they have 
in view, let him do what he can. 

I will not here mention again what I have 
above taken notice of, how hard it is to get the 
mind, narrowed by a custom of thirty or forty 
years* standing to a scanty collection of ob- 
vious and common ideas, to enlarge itself to a 
more copious stock, and grow into an acquain- 
tance with those that would afford more abun- 
dant matter of useful contemplation; it is not of 
this I am here speaking. The inconveniency 
I would here represent, and find a remedy for, 
is the difficulty there is sometimes to transfer 
our minds from one subject to another in ca- 
ses where the ideas are equally familiar to us. 

Matters, that are recommended to our 
thoughts by any of our passions, take pos- 
session of our minds with a kind of authority, 
and will not be kept out or dislodged ; but, as 
if the passion that rules were, for the time, the 
sheriff of the place, and came with all the posse, 
the understanding is seized and taken with the 
object it introduces, as if it had a legal right to 
be alone considered there. There is scarce 
any body, I think, of so calm a temper who 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 12-5 

hath not some time found this tyranny on his 
understanding, and suffered under the inconve- 
nience of it. Who is there almost, whose 
mind, some time or other, love or anger, fear 
or grief, has not so fastened to some clog, that 
it could not turn itself to any other object ? 
I call it a clog, for it hangs upon the mind so 
as to hinder its vigour and activity in the pursuit 
of other contemplations ; and advances itseli 
little or not at all in the knowledge of the thing 
which it so closely hugs and constantly pores 
on. Men thus possessed are sometimes as if 
they were so in the worst sense, and lay under 
the power of an enchantment. They see not 
what passes before their eyes ; hear not the 
audible discourse of the company ; and when 
by any strong application to them they are 
roused a little, they are like men brought to 
themselves from some remote region ; where- 
as in truth they come no farther than their 
secret cabinet within, where they have been 
wholly taken up with the puppet, which is for 
that time appointed for their entertainment. 
The shame that such dumps cause to well-bred 
people, ^'hen it carries them away from the 
company, where they should bear a part in the 
conversation, is a sufficient argument that it is 
a fault in the conduct of our understanding, 
not to have that power over it as to make 
use of it to those purposes, and on those occa- 
sions, wherein we have need of its assi>tance 
m 2 



126 OF THE CONDUCT 

The mind should be always free and ready to 
turn itself to the variety of objects that occur, 
and allow them as much consideration as shall 
for that time be thought fit. To be engrossed 
so by one object, as not to be prevailed on to 
leave it for another that we judge fitter for 
our contemplation, is to make it of no use to us. 
Did this state of mind remain always so, every 
one w r ould, without scruple, give it the name of 
perfect madness ; and whilst it does last, at 
whatever intervals it returns, such a rotation 
of thoughts about the same object no more car- 
ries us forward towards the attainment of 
knowledge, than getting upon a mill horse 
whilst he jogs on in his circular track would 
carry a man a journey. 

I grant something must be allowed to legiti- 
mate passions, and to natural inclinations. 
Every man, besides occasional affections, has 
beloved studies, and those the mind will more 
closely stick to ; but yet it is best that it should 
be always at liberty, and under the free disposal 
of the man, and to act how and upon what he 
directs. This we should endeavour to obtain, 
unless we would be content with such a flaw in 
our understanding, that sometimes we should 
be as it were without it ; for it is very little 
better than so in cases where we cannot make 
use of it to those purposes we would, and 
which stand in present need of it. 

But before fit remedies can be thought no 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING 127 

for this disease, we must know the several 
causes of it, and thereby regulate the cure, if 
we will hope to labour with success. 

One we have already instanced in, whereof 
all men that reflect have so general a knowl- 
edge, and so often an experience in themselves, 
that nobody doubts of it. A prevailing pas- 
sion so pins down our thoughts to the object 
and concern of it, that a man passionately in 
love cannot bring himself to think of his ordi- 
nary affairs, or a kind mother drooping under 
the loss of a child, is not able to bear a part as 
she was wont in the discourse of the company, 
or conversation of her friends. 

But though passion be the most obvious and 
general, yet it is not the only cause that binds 
up the understanding, and confines it for the 
time to one object, from which it will not be 
taken off. 

Besides this, we may often find that the un- 
derstanding, when it has awhile employed it- 
self upon a subject which either chance, or 
some slight accident, offered to it, without the 
interest or recommendation of any passion, 
works itself into a warmth, and by degrees gets 
into a career, wherein, like a bowl down a 
bill, it increases its motion by going, and will 
not be stopped or diverted ; though, when the 
heat is over, it sees all this earnest application 
was about a trifle not worth a thought, and all 
the pains employed about it lost labour 



a 28 OF THE CONDUCT 

There is a third sort, if I mistake not, yet 
lower than this ; it is a sort of childishness, if 
I may so say, of the understanding, wherein, 
during the fit, it plays with and dandles some 
insignificant puppet to no end, nor with any de- 
sign at all, and yet cannot easily be got off 
from it. Thus some trivial sentence, or a 
scrap of poetry, will sometimes get into men's 
heads, and make such a chiming there, that 
there is no stilling of it ; no peace to he ob- 
tained, nor attention to any thing else, but this 
impertinent guest will take up the mind and 
possess the thoughts in spite of all endeavours 
to get rid of it. Whether every one hath ex- 
perimented in themselves this troublesome in- 
trusion of some frisking ideas which thus im- 
portune the understanding, and hinder it from 
being better employed, I know not. But per- 
sons of very good parts, and those more than 
one, I have heard speak and complain of it 
themselves. The reason I have to make this 
doubt, is from what I have known in a case 
something of kin to this, though much odder, 
and that is of a sort of visions that some people 
have lying quiet, but perfectly awake, in the 
dark, or with their eyes shut. It is a great va- 
riety of faces, most commonly very odd ones, 
that appear to them in a train one ofter ano- 
ther ; so that having had just the sight of the 
one, it immediately passes away to give place 
io another, that the same instant succeeds, and 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 129 

has as quick an exit as its leader ; and so they 
march on in a constant succession ; nor can 
any one of them by any endeavour be stepped 
or retained beyond the instant of its appear- 
ance, but is thrust out by its follower, which 
will have its turn. Concerning this fantastical 
phenomenon I have talked with several people, 
whereof some have been perfectly acquainted 
with it, and others have been so wholly stran- 
gers to it, that they could hardly be brought to 
conceive or believe it. I knew a lady of ex- 
cellent parts, who had got past thirty without 
having ever had the least notice of any such 
thing ; she was so great a stranger to it, that 
when she heard me and another talking of it, 
could scarce forbear thinking we bantered her; 
but some time after drinking a large dose of 
dilute tea, (as she was ordered by a physician) 
going to bed, she told us at next meeting, that 
she had now experimented what our discourse 
had much ado to persuade her of. She had 
seen a great variety of faces in a long train, 
succeeding one another, as we had described ; 
they were all strangers and intruders, such as 
she had no acquaintance with before, nor 
sought after then ; and as they came of them- 
selves they went too ; none of fchem stayed a 
moment, nor could be detained by all the en 
deavours she could use, but went on in their 
solemn procession, just appeared and then van- 
ished This odd phenomenon seems to have 



130 OF THE CONDUCT 

a mechanical cause, and to depend upon the 
matter and motion of the blood or animal 
spirits. 

When the fancy is bound by passion, I 
know no way to set the mind free, and at lib- 
erty to prosecute what thoughts the man would 
make choice of, but to allay the present pas- 
, sion, or counterbalance it with another ; which 
is an art to be got by study, and acquaintance 
with the passions. 

Those who find themselves apt to be carried 
away with the spontaneous current of their own 
thoughts, not excited by any passion or inte- 
rest, must be be very wary and careful in all 
the instances of it to stop it, and never hu- 
mour their minds in being thus triflingly busy. 
Men know the value of their coporeal liberty, 
and therefore suffer not willingly fetters and 
chains to be put upon them. To have the 
mind captivated is, for the time, -certainly the 
greater evil of the two, and deserves our ut- 
most care and endeavours to preserve the 
freedom of our better part. In this case our 
pains will not be lost ; striving and struggling 
will prevail, if we constantly, on all such oc- 
casions, make use of it. We must never in- 
dulge these trivial attentions of thought ; as 
soon as we find the mind makes itself a busi- 
ness of nothing, we should immediately dis- 
turb and check it, introduce new and more se- 
rious considerations, and not leave till we 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 131 

have beaten it off from the pursuit it was 
upon. This, at first, if we have let the con- 
trary practice grow to a haVit, will perhaps be 
difficult ; but constant endeavours will by de- 
grees prevail, and at last make it easy. And 
when a man is pretty well advanced, and can 
command his mind off at pleasure from .inci- 
dental and undesigned pursuits, it may not be 
amiss for him to go on farther, and make at- 
tempts upon meditations or greater moment, 
that at the last he may have a full power over 
his own mind, and be so fully master of his 
own thoughts, as to be able to transfer them 
from one subject to another, w r ith the same 
ease that he can lay by any thing he has in his 
hand, and take something else that he has a 
mind to in the room of it. This liberty of 
mind is of great use both in business and study; 
and he that has got it will have no small ad- 
vantage of ease and despatch in all that is the 
chosen and useful employment of his under- 
standing. 

The third and last way which I mentioned 
the mind to be sometimes taken up with, I 
mean the chiming of some particular words or 
sentence in the memory, and, as it were, ma- 
king a noise in the head, and the like, seldom 
lappens but when the mind is lazy, or very 
loosely and negligently employed. It were bet- 
ter indeed to be without auch impertinent and 
useless repetitions : any obvious idea, when it 



132 OF THE CONDUCT &C. 

is roving carelessly at a venture, being o! 
more use, and apter to suggest something 
worth consideration, than the insignificant buzz 
of purely empty sounds. But since the rous- 
ing of the mind, and setting the understanding 
on work with some degrees of vigour, does for 
the most part presently set it free from these 
idle companions ; it may not be amiss, when- 
ever we find ourselves troubled with them, to 
make use of so profitable a remedy that is al* 
ways at hand. 




MORAL, 
ECONOMICAL, AND POLITICAL 

ESSAYS. 



BY FRANCIS BACON, 

8A.I3IT OF YERULAM, VISCOUNT ST. ALBANS, AND LORD 0IOH 



CHANCELLOR OF ENGLAND, 



a tfeto SMltim. 



HARTFORD: 

PUBLISHED BY S. ANDRUS & SON 

1651. 



CONTENTS. 



Page 

Prefatory Epistle 5 

Of Truth 7 

Death 10 

Unity in Religion 12 

Revenge 18 

Adversity 20 

Simulation and Dissimulation 22 

Parents and Children » 26 

Marriage and Single Life 28 

Envy 30 

Love 37 

Great Place 40 

Boldness 44 

Goodness, and Goodness of Nature 46 

A King 50 

Nobility 53 

Seditions and Troubles 55 

Atheism 64 

Superstition 68 

Travel 70 

Empire 7C 

Counsel 79 

Delays 86 

Cunning S7 

Wisdom for a Man's Self. 92 

Innovations 94 

Despatch 96 

Seeming Wise 98 

Friendship 100 

Expense 110 

The true Greatness of Kingdoms and Estates ..111 
Regimen of Health 124 



4 CONTENTS. 

Pago 

Of Suspicion.... 126 

Discourse .123 

Plantations ...... 131 

Riches 135 

Prophecies .139 

Ambition , 143 

Masques and Triumphs 146 

Nature in Men * . . . . 143 

Custom and Education 150 

Fortune 153 

Usury 155 

Youth and Age 160 

Beauty 162 

Deformity 164 

Building t 166 

Gardens 171 

Negotiating 180 

Followers and Friends 182 

Suitors 135 

Studies 187 

Faction 189 

Ceremonies and Respects 191 

Praise 193 

Vainglory 169 

Honour and ReputaMon . .» . . „ • • , 198 

Judicature 201 

Anger 206 

Vicissitude of Things. t 209 






PREFATORY EPISTLE. 



TO MR. ANTHONY BACON, 

HIS DEAR BROTHER. 

Loving and beloved brother, I do now 
like some that have an orchard ill neigh- 
boured, that gather their fruit before it is 
ripe, to prevent stealing. These fragments 
of my conceits were going to print : to 
labour the stay of them had been trouble- 
some, and subject to interpretation; to let 
them pass had been to adventure the wrong 
they might receive by untrue copies, or 
by some garnishment which it might please 
any that should set them forth to bestow 
upon them : therefore I held it best dis- 
cretion to publish them myself, as they 
passed long ago from my pen, without any 
further disgrace than the weakness of the 
author ; and as I did ever hold, there might 
be as great a vanity in retiring and with- 
drawing men's conceits (except they be 
of some nature) from the world as in ob- 
truding them ; so in these particulars I 
have played myself the inquisitor, and find 



6 PREFATORY EPISTLE. 

nothing to my understanding in them 
contrary or infectious to the state of reli- 
gion or manners, but rather, as I suppose, 
medicinable : only I dislike now to put 
them out, because they will be like the 
late new halfpence, which though the sil- 
ver were good, yet the pieces were small ? 
but since they would not stay with their 
master, but would needs travel abroad, I 
have preferred them to you, that are next 
myself; dedicating them, such as they are, 
to our love ; in the depth whereof, I assure 
you, I sometimes wish your infirmities 
translated upon myself, that her majesty 
might have the service of so active and 
able a mind ; and I might be with excuse 
confined to these contemplations and stu- 
dies, for which I am fittest ; so commend 
I you to the preservation of the Divine 
Majesty. 

Your entire ouing brother, 

FRAN. BACON. 

From my Chamber at Grav f t l*n t 
this 30th of January 15$r 



ESSAYS, 

CIVIL AND MORAL. 



OF TRUTH. 



What is truth? said jesting Pilate, and 
would not stay for an answer. Certainly there 
be that delight in giddiness, and count it a 
bondage to fix a belief ; affecting free will in 
thinking, as well as in acting : and though the 
sects of philosophers of that kind be gone, yet 
there remain certain discoursing wits which 
are of the same veins, though there be not so 
much blood in them as was in those of the 
ancients. But it is not only the difficulty and 
labour which men take in finding out of truth ; 
nor again, that, when it is found, it imposeth 
upon men's thoughts, that doth bring lies in 
favour ; but a natural, though corrupt love of 
the lie itself. One of the later schools of the 
Grecians examineth the matter, and is at a 
stand to think what should be in it, that men 
should love lies, where neither they make for 
pleasure, as with poets ; nor for advantage, as 
with the merchant; but for the lie's sake. 
But I cannot tell : this same truth is a naked 
and open daylight, that doth not show the 
masques, and mummeries, and triumphs of the 



OF TRUTH. 



world, half so stately and daintily as candle- 
lights. Truth may perhaps come to the price 
of a pearl, that showeth best by day ; but it 
will not rise to the price of a diamond or car- 
buncle, that showeth best in varied lights. 
A mixture of a lie doth ever add pleasure. 
Doth any man doubt, that if there were taken 
out of men's minds vain opinions, flattering 
hopes, false valuations, imaginations as one 
would, and the like, but it would leave the 
minds of a number of men poor shrunken 
things, full of melancholy and indisposition, 
and unpleasing to themselves ? One of the 
fathers, in great severity, called poesy " vinum 
daemonum," because it filleth the imagination, 
and yet it is but with the shadow of a lie. 
But it is not the lie that passeth through the 
mind, but the lie that sinketh in and settleth 
in it, that doth the hurt, such as we spake of 
before. But howsoever these things are thus 
in men's depraved judgments and affections, 
yet truth, which only doth judge itself, teach- 
eth that the inquiry of truth, which is the 
love-making or wooing of it ; the knowledge 
of truth, which is the presence of it ; and the 
belief of truth, which is the enjoying of it ; 
is the sovereign good of human nature. The 
first creature of God, in the works of the 
days, was the light of the sense ; the last was 
the light of reason ; and his sabbath work, 
ever since, is the illumination of his Spirit. 
First he breathed light upon the face of the 
matter, or chaos ; then he breatheth light into 



OF TRUTH. 



the face of man ; and still he breatheth and 
inspireth light into the face of his chosen. 
The poet that beautified the sect, that was 
otherwise inferior to the rest, saith yet excel- 
lently well, " It is a pleasure to stand upon 
the shore, and to see ships tossed upon the sea : 
a pleasure to stand in the window of a castle, 
and to see a battle, and the adventures thereof 
below : but no pleasure is comparable to the 
standing upon the vantage ground of truth, (a 
hill not to be commanded, and where the air 
is always clear and serene,) and to see the 
errors, and wanderings, and mists, and tem- 
pests in the vale below :" so always that this 
prospect be with pity, and not with swelling 
or pride. Certainly it is heaven upon earth to 
have a man's mind move in charity, rest in 
providence, and turn upon the poles of truth. 

To pass from theological and philosophical 
truth to the iruth of civil business, it will be 
acknowledged, even by those that practise it 
not, that clear and round dealing is the honour 
of man's nature, and that mixture of false- 
hood is like alloy in coin of gold and silver, 
which may make the metal work the better, 
but it embaseth it : for these winding and 
crooked courses are the goings of the serpent, 
which goeth basely upon the belly, and not 
upon the feet. There is no vice that doth so 
cover a man with shame as to be found false 
and perfidious : and therefore Montaigne saith 
prettily, when he inquired the reason why the 
word of the lie should be such a disgrace, and 



10 OP DEATH. 

such an odious charge, " If it be well weigh- 
ed, to say that a man lieth, is as much as to 
say that he is brave towards God, and a cow r - 
ard towards men: for a lie faces God, and 
shrinks from man." Surely the wickedness 
of falsehood and breach of faith cannot possi- 
bly be so highly expressed as in that it rfiall 
be the last peal to call the judgments of God 
upon the generations of men : it being fore- 
told th?t when "Christ cometh," he shall not 
" find faith upon earth." 



OF DEATH. 



Men fear death as children fear to go into 
the dark ; and as that natural fear in children 
is increased with tales, so is the other. Cer- 
tainly, the contemplation of death, as the 
wages of sin and passage to another world, is 
holy and religious ; but the fear of it, as a tri- 
bute due unto nature, is weak. Yet in reli- 
gious meditations there is sometimes mixture 
of vanity and of superstition. You shall read in 
some of the friars' books of mortification, that 
a man should think with himself what the 
pain is, if he have but his finger's end pressed, 
or tortured, and thereby imagine what the 
pains of death are when the whole body is 
corrupted and dissolved; when many times 
death passeth with less pain than the torture 
of a limb ; for the most vital parts are not the 
quickest of sense : and by him that spake only 



OP DEATH. 11 

as a philosopher and natural man, it was well 
said, " Pompa mortis magis terret quam mors 
ipsa." Groans, and convulsions, and a dis- 
coloured face, and friends weeping, and blacks 
and obsequies, and the like, show death terri- 
ble. It is worthy the observing, that there is 
no passion in the mind of man so weak, but it 
mates and masters the fear of death ; and, there- 
fore, death is no such terrible enemy when a 
man hath so many attendants about him that 
can win the combat of him. Revenge triumph? 
over death ; love slights it ; honour aspireth 
to it ; grief flieth to it $ fear preoccupieth it , 
nay, we read, after Otho the emperor had slab 
himself, pity (which is the tenderest of affec- 
tions) provoked many to die out of mere" 
compassion to their sovereign, and as the tru- 
est sort of followers. Nay, Seneca add? 
niceness and satiety : u Cogita quamdiu eadem 
feceris ; mori velle, non tantum fortis, aut 
miser, sed etiam fastidiosus potest." A man 
would die, though he were neither valiant nor 
miserable, only upon a weariness to do the 
same thing so oft over and over. It is no less 
worthy to observe, how little alteration in good 
spirits the approaches of death make ; for they 
appear to be tile same men till the last instant. 
Augustus Caesar died in a compliment : " Livia, 
conjugii nostri memcr, vive et vale :" Tibe- 
rius in dissimulation, as Tacitus saith of him, 
u Jam Tiberium vires et corpus, non dissimu- 
latio, deserebant : n Vespasian in a jest, sitting 
upon the stool, u Ut puto Deus fio :" Galba 



12 OP UNITY IN RELIGION. 

with a sentence, " Feri, si ex re sit populi 
Romani," holding forth his neck : Septimus 
Sevems in despatch, "Adeste, si quid mihi 
restat agendum," and the like. Certainly the 
Stoics bestowed too much cost upon death, and 
by their great preparations made it appear 
more fearful. Better, saith he, "qui finem 
vitse extremum inter munera, ponat naturae." 
It is as natural to die as to be born ; and to a 
little infant^ perhaps, the one is as painful as 
the other. He that dies' in an earnest pursuit 
is like one that is wounded in hot blood ; who, 
for the time, scarce feels the hurt; and there- 
fore a mind fixed and bent upon somewhat 
that is good, doth avert the dolours of death : 
but, above all, believe it, the sweetest canticle 
is, " Nunc dimittis," when a man hath ob- 
tained worthy ends and expectations. Death 
hath this also, that it openeth the gate to good 
fame, and extinguish eth envy : " Extinctus 
amabitur idem." 






OF UNITY IN RELIGION. 



Religion being the chief bond of human 
society, it is a happy thing when itself is well 
contained within the true bond of unity. The 
quarrels and divisions about religion were 
evils unknown to the heathen. The reason 
was, because the religion of the heathen con- 
sisted rather in rites and ceremonies than in 
any constant belief; for you may imagine what 



OP UNITY IN RELIGION. 13 

Kind of faith theirs was, when the chief doc- 
tors and fathers of their church were the 
poets. But the true God hath this attribute, 
that he is a jealous God ; and therefore his 
worship and religion will endure no mixture 
nor partner. We shall therefore speak a few 
words concerning the unity of the church; 
what are the fruits thereof; what the bonds ; 
and what the means. 

The fruits of unity (next unto the well 
pleasing of God, which is all in all) are two f 
the one towards those that are without the 
church, the other towards those that are 
within. For the former, it is certain, that 
heresies and schisms are of all others the 
greatest scandals ; yea, more than corruption 
of manners ; for as in the natural body a 
wound or solution of continuity is worse than 
a corrupt humour, so in the spiritual : so that 
nothing doth so much keep men out of the 
church, and drive men out of the church, as 
breach of unity ; and, therefore, whensoever it 
cometh to that pass that one saith, u ecce in de- 
serto," another saith, u ecce in penetralibus ;" 
that is, when some men seek Christ in the con- 
venticles of heretics, and others in an outward 
face of a church, that voice had need continu- 
ally to sound in men's ears, " nolite exire," — - 
" go not out." The doctor of the Gentiles 
(the propriety of whos2 vocation drew him to 
have a special care of those without) saith, 
" If an heathen come in, and hear you speak 
with several tongues, will he not say that you 
2 



14 OF UNITY IN RELIGUOff. 

are mad ?" and, certainly, it is little better ; 
when atheists and profane persons do hear of 
so many discordant and contrary opinions in 
religion, it doth avert them from the church, 
and maketh them " to sit down in the chair of 
the scorners. 55 It is but a light thing to be 
vouched in so serious a matter, but yet it ex- 
presseth well the deformity. There is a mas- 
ter of scoffing, that, in his catalogue of books 
of a feigned library, sets down this title of a 
book, "The Morris-Dance of Heretics: 55 for, 
indeed, every sect of them hath a diverse pos- 
ture, or cringe, by themselves, which cannot 
but move derision in worldlings and depraved 
politics, who are apt to contemn holy things. 

As for the fruit towards those that are 
within, it is peace which containeth infinite 
blessings ; it establisheth faith ; it kindleth 
chanty ; the outward peace of the church dis- 
tilleth into peace of conscience, and it turneth 
the labours of writing and reading contro- 
versies into treatises of mortification and 
devotion. 

Concerning the bonds of unity, the true 
placing of them importeth exceedingly. There 
appear to be two extremes : for to certain zea- 
lots all speech of pacification is odious. " Is 
it peace, Jehu ? w — " What hast thou to do 
with peace? turn thee behind me. 55 Peace is 
not the matter, but following and party. Con- 
trariwise, certain Laodiceans and lukewarm 
persons think they may accommodate points of 
religion by middle ways, and taking part of 



OP UNITY IN RELIGION. 15 

both, and witty reconcilements, as if they 
would make an arbitrement between God and 
man. Both these extremes are to be avoided ; 
which will be done if the league of Christians 
penned by our Saviour himself, were in 
the two cross clauses thereof soundly and 
plainly expounded : " He that is not with us 
is against us;" and again, " He that is not 
against us is with us;" that is, if the points 
fundamental, and of substance in religion, 
were truly discerned and distinguished from 
points not merely of faith, but of opinion, or- 
der, or good intention. This is a thing may 
seem to many a matter trivial, and done al- 
ready ; but if it were done less partially, it 
would be embraced more generally. 

Of this I may give only this advice, accord- 
ing to my small model. Men ought to take 
heed of rending God's church by two kinds of 
controversies ; the one is, when the matter of 
the point controverted is too small and light, 
not worth the heat and strife about it, kindled 
only by contradiction ; for, as it is noted by one 
of the fathers, Christ's coat indeed had no 
seam, but the church's vesture was of divers 
colours ; whereupon he saith, u in veste vari 
etas sit, scissura non sit," they be two things, 
unity and uniformity : the other is, when the 
matter of the point controverted is great, but it 
is driven to an overgreat subtilty and obscurity, 
so that it becometh a thing rather ingenious 
than substantial. A man that is of judgment 
and understanding shall sometimes hear igno- 



16 OF UNITY IN RELIGION. 

rant men differ, and know well within him 
self, that those which so differ mean one 
thing, and yet they themselves would never 
agree : and if it come so to pass in that distance 
of judgment, which is between man and man, 
shall we not think that God above, that knows 
the heart, doth not discern that frail men, in 
some of their contradictions, intend the same 
thing, and accepteth of both ? The nature of 
such controversies is excellently expressed by 
St. Paul, in the warning and precept that he 
giveth concerning the same, " devita profanas 
vocum novitates, et oppositiones falsi nominis 
scientiae." Men create oppositions which are 
not, and put them into new terms so fixed, as 
whereas the meaning ought to govern the 
term, the term in effect governeth the mean- 
ing. There be also two false peaces or unities : 
the one, when the peace is grounded but upon 
an implicit ignorance; for all colours will 
agree in the dark: the other, when it is 
pieced up upon a direct admission of contraries 
in fundamental points ; for truth and falsehood, 
in such things, are like the iron and clay in 
the toes of Nebuchadnezzar's image ; they 
may cleave, but they will not incorporate. 

Concerning the means of procuring unity, 
men must beware, that, in the procuring or 
muniting of religious unity, they do not dis- 
solve and deface the laws of charity and of 
human society. There be two swords amongst 
Christians, the spiritual and temporal; and 
both have iheir due oifice and place in the 



OF UNITY IN RELIGION. 17 

maintenance of religion but we may not take 
up the third sword, which is Mahomet's 
sword, or like unto it : that is, to propagate 
religion by wars, or by sanguinary persecu- 
tions to force consciences; except it be in 
cases of overt scandal, blasphemy, or intermix- 
ture of practice against the state ; much less 
to nourish seditions ; to authorize conspiracies 
and rebellions ; to put the sword into the 
people's hands, and the like, tending to 
the subversion of all government, which is the 
ordinance of God : for this is but to dash the 
first table against the second ; and so to consi- 
der men as Christians, as we forget that they 
are men. Lucretius the poet, when he beheld 
the act of Agamemnon, that could endure the 
sacrificing of his own daughter, exclaimed : 

" Tanturn religio potuit suadere malorum." 

What would he have said, if he had known of 
the massacre in France, or the powder treason 
of England ? He would have been seven 
times more epicure and atheist than he was : 
for as the temporal sword is to be drawn with 
great circumspection in cases of religion, so it 
is a thing monstrous to put into the hands of 
the common people ; let that be left unto the 
anabaptists, aud other furies. It was great 
blasphemy, when the devil said, " I will as- 
cend, and be like the Highest ;" but it is greater 
blasphemy to personate God, and bring him in 
saying, " I will descend, and be like the prince 
of larkness :" and what is it better, to make 
Li 



18 OF REVENGE. 

the cause of religion to descend to the cruel 
and execrable actions of murdering princes, 
butchery of people, and subversion of states 
and governments? Surely this is to bring 
down the Holy Ghost, instead of the likeness 
of a dove, in the shape of a vulture or raven ; 
and to set out of the bark of a Christian church 
a flag of a bark of pirates and assassins : 
therefore it is most necessary, that the church 
by doctrine and decree, princes by their sword, 
and all learnings, both Christain and moral, as 
by their mercury rod to damn, and send to hell 
for ever, those facts and opinions tending to 
the support of the same, as hath been already 
in good part done. Surely in councils con- 
cerning religion, that counsel of the apostle 
would be prefixed, " Ira hominis non implet 
justitkm Dei :" and it was a notable observa- 
tion of a wise father, and no less ingenuously 
confessed, that those which held and persuaded 
pressure of consciences were commonly inter- 
ested therein themselves for their own ends. 



OF REVENGE. 

Revenge is a kind of wild justice, which 
the more man's nature runs to, the more 
ought law to w r eed it out : for as for the first 
wrong, it doth but offend the law, but the re- 
venge of that wrong putteth the law out of of- 
fice. Certainly, in taking revenge, a man is 
/>ut even with his enemy; but in passing it 



OF REVENGE. 19 

over he is superior ; for it is a prince's part 
to pardon : and Solomon, I am sure, saith, 
" It is the glory of a man to pa&3 by an of- 
fence." That which is passed is gone and 
irrecoverable, and wise men have enough to do 
with things present and to come; therefore 
they do but trifle with themselves that labour 
in past matters. There is no man dotb a 
wrong for the wrong's sake, but thereby to 
purchase himself profit, or pleasure, or honour, 
or the like ; therefore why should I be angry 
with a man for loving himself better than me ? 
And if any man should do wrong, merely out 
of ill nature, why, yet it is but like the thorn 
or brier, which prick and scratch, because they 
can do no other. The most tolerable sort of 
revenge is for those wrongs which there is no 
law to remedy : but then, let a man take heed 
the revenge be such as there is no law to pun- 
ish, else a man's enemy is still beforehand, and 
it is two for one. Some, when they take re- 
venge, are desirous the party should know 
when it cometh : this is the more generous; 
for the delight seemethto be not so much in do- 
ing the hurt as in making the party repent ; but 
base and crafty cowards are like the arrow 
that flieth in the dark. Cosmus, Duke of 
Florence, had a desperate saying against per- 
fidious or neglecting friends, as if those wrongs 
were unpardonable. " You shall read," saith 
he, u that we are commanded to forgive oui 
enemies, but you never read that we are com 
manded to forgive our friends " But yet the 



20 OP ADVERSITY. 

spirit of Job was in a better tune : " Shall 
we," saith he, " take good at God's hands, 
and not be content to take evil also ?" and so 
of friends in a proportion. This is certain, that 
a man that studieth revenge keeps his own 
wounds green, which otherwise would heal, 
and do well. Public revenges are for the most 
part fortunate ; as that for the death of Caesar ; 
for the death of Pertinax ; for the death of 
Henry the Third of France ; and many more. 
But in private revenges it is not so ; nay, rath- 
er vindicative persons live the life of witches ; 
ivho, as they are mischievous, so end they 
unfortunate. 



OF ADVERSITY. 



It was a high speech of Seneca, (after the 
manner of the Stoics,) that the good things 
which belong to prosperity are to be wished, 
but the good things that belong to adversity 
are to be admired : " Bona rerum secundarum 
optabilia, adversarum mirabilia." Certainly, 
if miracles be the command over nature, they 
appear most in adversity. It is yet a higher 
speech of his than the other, (much too high 
for a heathen,) " It is true greatness to have 
in one the frailty of a man, and the security of 
a God :" — " Vere magnum habere fragilitatem 
hominis, securitatem Dei." This would have 
done better in poesy where transcendencies 



OF ADVERSITY. 21 

are more allowed ; and the poets, indeed, have 
been busy with it ; for it is in effect the thing 
which is figured in that strange fiction of the 
ancient poets, which seemeth not to be with- 
out mystery ; nay, and to have some approach 
to the state of a Christian, u that Hercules, 
when he went to unbind Prometheus, (by whom 
human nature is represented,) sailed the length 
of the great ocean in an earthen pot or pitcher, 
lively describing Christian resolution, that 
saileth in the frail bark of the flesh through 
the waves of the world." But, to speak in a 
mean, the virtue of prosperity is temperance, 
the virtue of adversity is fortitude, which in 
morals is the more heroical virtue. Prosperity 
is the blessing of the Old Testament, adver- 
sity is the blessing of the New, which carrieth 
the greater benediction, and the clearer reve- 
lation of God's favour. Yet even in the Old 
Testament, if you listen to David's harp, you 
shall hear as many hearselike airs as carols ; 
and the pencil of the Holy Ghost hath la- 
boured more in describing the afflictions of Job 
than the felicities of Solomon. Prosperity is 
not without many fears and distastes ; and ad- 
versity is not without comforts and hopes. 
We see in needleworks and embroideries, it is 
more pleasing to have a lively work upon a 
sad and solemn ground, than to have a dark 
and melancholy work upon a lightsome ground : 
judge, therefore, of the pleasure of the heart 
by the pleasure of the eye. Certainly virtue 



22 OF SIMULATION AND 

is like precious odours, most fragrant where 
they are incensed or crushed : for prosperity 
doth best discover vice, but adversity doth best 
discover virtue. 



OF SIMULATION AND DISSIMULATION. 

Dissimulation is but a faint kind of policy 
or wisdom ; for it asketh a strong wit and a 
strong heart to know when to tell truth, and 
to do it : therefore it is the weaker sort of 
politicians that are the greatest dissemblers. 

Tacitus saith, u Livia sorted well with the 
arts of her husband and dissimulation of her 
son; attributing arts or policy to Augustus, 
and dissimulation to Tiberius :" and again, 
when Mucianus encourageth Vespasian to take 
arms against Viteilius, he saith, " We rise 
not against the piercing judgment of Augustus, 
nor the extreme caution or closeness of Tibe- 
rius :" these properties of arts, or policy, and 
dissimulation and closeness, are indeed habits 
and faculties several, and to be distinguished ; 
for if a man have that penetration of judgment 
as he can discern what things are to be laid 
open, and what to be secreted, and what to be 
showed at half lights, and to whom and when, 
(which indeed are arts of state, and arts of 
life, as Tacitus well calleth them,) to him a 
habit of dissimulation is a hinderance and a 
poorness. But if a man cannot attain to that 
judgment, then it is left to him generally to be 



DISSIMULATION. 23 

close, and a dissembler ; for where a man can- 
not choose or vary in particulars, there it is 
good to take the safest and wariest way in 
general, like the going softly by one that can- 
not well see. Certainly the ablest men that 
ever were have had all an openness and frank- 
ness of dealing, and a name of certainty and 
veracity : but then they were like horses well 
managed, for they could tell passing well when 
to stop or turn ; and at such times, when they 
thought the case indeed required dissimulation, 
if then they used it, it came to pass that the 
former opinion spread abroad, of their good 
faith and clearness of dealing, made them al- 
most invisible. 

There be three degrees of this hiding and 
veiling of a man's self; the first, closeness, 
reservation, and secreey, when a man leaveth 
himself without observation, or without hold 
to be taken, what he is ; the second, dissimu- 
lation in the negative, when a man lets fall 
signs and arguments, that he is not that he is ; 
and the third, simulation in the affirmative, 
when a man industriously and expressly feigns 
and pretends to be that he is not. 

For the first of these, secrecy, it is indeed 
the virtue of a confessor ; and assuredly the 
secret man heareth many confessions: ; for who 
will open himself to a blab or a babbfer ? 
But if a man be thought secret, it inviteth dis- 
covery, as the more close air sucketh in the 
more open ; and, as in confessing, the reveal- 
ing is not for worldly use, but for the ease of 



24 OP SIMULATION AND 

a man's heart, so secret men come to the 
knowledge of many things in that kind ; while 
men rather discharge their minds than impart 
their minds. In few words, mysteries are due 
to secrecy. Besides (to say truth) nakedness 
is uncomely, as well in mind as in body ; and 
it addeth no small reverence to men's manners 
and actions, if they be not altogether open. 
As for talkers and futile persons, they are com- 
monly vain, and credulous withal : for he that 
talketh what he knoweth will also talk what 
he knoweth not ; therefore set it down, that a 
habit of secrecy is both politic and moral : 
and in this part it is good, that a man's face 
give his tongue leave to speak ; for the discov- 
ery of a man's self, by the tracts of his coun- 
tenance 7 is a great weakness and betraying, by 
how much it is many times more marked and 
believed than a man's words. 

For the second, which is dissimulation, it 
follow -ih many times upon secrecy by a ne- 
ces°,£tj ) so that he that will be secret must be 
a Assembler in some degree : for men are too 
canning to suffer a man to keep an indifferent 
carriage between both, and to be secret, with- 
out swaying the balance on either side. They 
will so beset a man with questions, and draw 
him on, and pick it out of him, that, without 
an absurd silence, he must show an inclina- 
tion one way ; or, if he do not, they will gath- 
er as much by his silence as by his speech. 
As for equivocations, or oraculous speeches, 
they cannot hold out long. So that no man 



DISSIMULATION. 25 

can be secret, except he give himself a little 
scope of dissimulation, which is, as it were, 
b?it the skirts or train of secrecy. 

But for the third degree, which is simula- 
tion and false profession, that I hold more cul- 
pable, and less politic, except it be in great 
and rare matters : and, therefore, a general 
custom of simulation (which is this last de- 
gree) is a vice rising either of a natural false- 
ness, or tearfulness, or of a mind that hath 
some main faults ; which, because a man 
must needs disguise, it maketh him practise 
simulation in ether things, lest his hand should 
be out of use. 

The advantages of simulation and dissimu- 
lation are tfiree : first, to lay asleep opposition, 
and to surprise; for where a man's intentions 
are published, it is an alarm to call up all that 
are against them ; the second is, to reserve to 
h man's self a fair retreat ; for if a man en- 
gage himself by a manifest declaration, he 
must go through, or take a fall : the third is, 
the better to discover the mind of another; 
lor to him that opens himself men will hardly 
a dow themselves averse; but will (fair) let 
Lim go on, and turn their freedom of speech 
1 1 freedom of thought ; and therefore it is a 
good shrewd proverb of the Spaniard, u Tell 
b lie and find a troth," as if there were no way 
<«(' discovery but by simulation. There be also 
tnree disadvantages to set it even ; the first, 
that simulation and dissimulation commonly 
carry with them a show of fearfulness, which 
3 



26 OF PARENTS AND CHILDREN. 

m any business doth spoil the feathers of round 
flying up to the mark ; the second, that it puz- 
zleth and perpiexeth the conceits of many, 
that perhaps would otherwise cooperate with 
him, and makes a man walk almost alone to his 
own ends ; the third and greatest is, that it 
depriveth a man of one of the most principal 
instruments for action, which is trust and be- 
lief. The best composition and temperature 
is, to have openness in fame and opinion ; se- 
crecy in habit; dissimulation in seasonable 
use, and a power to feign, if there be no 
remedy. 



OF PARENTS AND CHILDREN. 

The joys of parents are secret, and so are 
their griefs and fears ; they cannot utter the 
one, nor they will not utter the other. Chil- 
dren sweeten labours, but they make misfor- 
tunes more bitter ; they increase the cares of 
life, but they mitigate the remembrance of 
death. The perpetuity by generation is com- 
mon to beasts ; but memory, merit, and noble 
works are proper to men : and surely a man 
shall see the noblest works and foundations 
have proceeded from childless men, which 
have sought to express the images of their 
minds, where those of their bodies have failed ; 
so the care of posterity is most in them that 
have no posterity. They that are the first 
raisers of their houses are most indulgent 



OF PARENTS AND CHILDREN. 27 

towards their children, beholding them as the 
continuance, not only of their kind, but of 
their work ; and so both children and creatures. 
The difference in affection of parents to- 
wards their several children is many times un- 
equal and sometimes unworthy, especially in 
the mother ; as Solomon saith, " a wise son 
rejoiceth the father, but an ungracious son 
shames the mother. 3 ' A man shall see, 
where there is a house full of children, one or two 
of the eldest respected, and the youngest made 
wantons ; but in the midst some that are as it 
were forgotten, who, many times, nevertheless, 
prove the best. The illiberality of parents, in 
allowance towards their children, is a harmful 
error ; and makes them base ; acquaints them 
with shifts ; makes them sort with mean com- 
pany ; and makes them surfeit more when they 
come to plenty : and therefore the proof is best 
when men keep their authority towards their 
children, but not their purse. Men have a 
foolish manner (both parents and school- 
masters and servants) in creating and breeding 
an emulation between brothers during child- 
hood, which many times sorteth to discord 
when they are men, and disturbeth families. 
The Italians make little difference between 
children and nephews, or near kinsfolks ; but 
so they be of the lump, they care not, though 
they pass not through their own body ; and, to 
say truth, in nature, it is much a like matter; 
insomuch that we see a nephew sometimes re- 
sembleth an uncle or a kinsman more than his 



28 



OF MARRIAGE AND SINGLE LIFE. 



own parents, as the blood happens. Let pa- 
rents choose betimes the vocations and courses 
they mean their children should take, for then 
they are most flexible ; and let them not too 
much apply themselves to the disposition of 
their children, as thinking they will take best 
to that which they have most mind to. It is 
true, that, if the affection or aptness of the 
children be extraordinary, then it is good not 
to cross it ; but generally the precept is good, 
" optimum elige, suave et facile illud faciet 
consuetudo." Younger brothers are com- 
monly fortunate, but seldom or never where 
the elder are disinherited. 



OF MARRIAGE AND SINGLE LIFE. 

He that hath wife and children hath given 
hostages to fortune ; for they are impediments 
to great enterprises, either of virtue or mis- 
chief. Certainly the best works, and of great- 
est merit for the public, have proceeded from 
the unmarried or childless men ; which, both in 
affection and means, have married, and endow- 
ed the public. Yet it were great reason that 
those that have children should have greatest 
care of future times, unto which they know 
they must transmit their dearest pledges. 
Some there are, who, though they lead a 
single life, yet their thoughts do end with 
themselves, and account future times imper- 
tinences ; nay, there are some other that 



OP MARRIAGE AND SINGLE LIFE. 29 

account wife and children but as bills oi 
charges : nay, more, there are some foolish, rich, 
covetous men, that take a pride in having no 
children, because they may be thought so much 
the richer ; for perhaps they have heard some 
talk, " Such an one is a great rich man," and 
another except to it, " Yea, but he hath a 
great charge of children;" as if it were an 
abatement to his riches : but the most ordi- 
nary cause of a single life is liberty, especially 
in certain self-pleasing and humorous minds, 
which are so sensible of every restraint, as 
they will go near to think their girdles and 
garters to be bonds and shackles. Unmarried 
men are best friends, best masters, best ser- 
vants, but not always best subjects ; for they 
are light to run away; and almost all fugitives 
are of that condition. A single life doth well 
with churchmen, for charity will haidly watei 
the ground where it must first fill a pool. It is 
indifferent for judges and magistrates ; for, if they 
be facile and corrupt, you shall have a servant 
five times worse than a wife. For soldiers, I 
find the generals commonly, in their hortatives, 
put men in mind of their wives and children ; 
and I think the despising of marriage among 
the Turks maketh the vulgar soldier more 
base. Certainly wife and children are a kind 
of discipline of humanity ; and single men, 
though they be many times more charitable, 
because their means are less exhaust, yet, on 
the other side, they are more cruel and hard- 
hearted, (good to make severe inquisitors,) 
3 # 



30 OF ENVY. 

because their tenderness is not so oft called 
upon. Grave natures, led by custom, a-nd 
therefore constant, are commonly loving hus- 
bands, as was said of Ulysses, " vetulam suam 
praetulit immortalitatL'' Chaste women are of- 
ten proud and froward, as presuming upon 
the merit of their chastity. It is one of the 
best bonds, both of chastity and obedience, 
in the wife, if she think her husband wise, 
which she will never do if she find him jealous. 
Wives are young men's mistresses, compan- 
ions for middle age, and old men's nurses ; so 
as a man may have a quarrel to marry when 
he will : but yet he was reputed one of the 
wise men that made answer to the question 
when a man should marry : — " A young man 
not yet, an elder man not at all." It is often 
seen, that bad husbands have very good wives ; 
whether it be that it raiseth the price of their 
husbands' kindness when it comes, or that the 
wives take a pride in their patience ; but this 
never fails if the bad husbands were of their 
own choosing, against their friends' consent, 
for then they will be sure to make good their 
own folly. 



OF ENVY. 



There be none of the affections which 
have been noted to fascinate, or bewitch, but 
love and envy: they both have vehement 
wishes ; they frame themselves readily into 



OF ENVY. 31 

imaginations and suggestions ; and they come 
easily into the eye, especially upon the pres- 
ence of the objects which are the points that 
conduce to fascination, if any such thing there 
be. We see, likewise, the scripture calleth 
envy an evil eye ; and the astrologers call the 
evil influences of the stars evil aspects ; sc that 
still there seemeth to be acknowledged, in the 
act of envy, an ejaculation, or irradiation of the 
eye: nay, some have been so curious as to 
note, that the times when the stroke or 
percussion of an envious eye doth most hurt, 
&re, when the party envied is beheld in glory 
or triumph ; for that sets an edge upon envy : 
and, besides, at such times the spirits of the 
person envied do come forth most into the 
outward parts, and so meet the blow. 

But, leaving these curiosities, (though not 
unworthy to be thought on in fit place,) we 
will handle what persons are apt to envy 
others; what persons are most subject to be 
envied themselves ; and what is the differ- 
ence between public and private envy. 

A man that hath no virtue in himself ever 
envieth virtue in others ; for men's minds will 
either feed upon their own good, or upon oth- 
ers' evil ; and who wanteth the one will prey 
upon the other : and whoso is out of hope to 
attain another's virtue will seek to come at 
even hand by depressing another's fortune. 

A man that is busy and inquisitive is com- 
monly envious ; for to know much of other 
men's mat ers cannot be, because all that ado 



52 OP ENVY. 

may concern nis own estate ; therefore it must 
needs be that he taketh a kind of play-pleasure 
in looking upon the fortunes of others ; neither 
can he that mindeth but his own business find 
much matter for envy ; for envy is a gadding 
passion, and walketh the streets, and doth not 
keep at home : " Non est curiosus, quin idem 
sit rnalevolus." 

Men of noble birth are noted to be envious 
towards new men when they rise ; for the dis- 
tance is altered ; and it is like a deceit of the 
eye, that when others come on they think 
themselves go back. 

Deformed persons and eunuchs, and old men 
and bastards, are envious : for he that cannot 
possibly mend his own case will do what he 
can to impair another's ; except these defects 
light upon a very brave and heroical nature, 
which thinketh to make his natural wants part 
of his honour ; in that it should be said, " that 
an eunuch, or a lame man, did such great 
matters ;" affecting the honour of a miracle : 
as it was in Narses, the eunuch, and Agesilaus 
and Tamerlane, that were lame men. 

The same is the case of men who rise after 
calamities and misfortunes; for they are as 
men fallen out with the times, and think other 
men's harms a redemption of their own suf- 
ferings. 

They that desire to excel in too many mat- 
ters, out of levity and vain glory, are ever en- 
vious, for they cannot want work; it being 



OF ENVY. 33 

Impossible but many, in some one of those 
things, should surpass them; which was the 
character of Adrian the emperor, that mortally 
envied poets, and painters, and artificers in 
works, wherein he had a vein to excel. 

Lastly, near kinsfolks, and fellows in office, 
and those that are bred together, are more apt 
to envy their equals when they are raised ; 
for it doth upbraid unto them their own for- 
tunes, and pointeth at them, and cometh of- 
tener into their remembrance, and incurreth 
likewise more into the note of others; and 
envy ever redoubleth from speech and fame. 
Cain's envy was the more vile and malignant 
towards his brother Abel, because, when his 
sacrifice was better accepted, there was nobody 
to look on. Thus much for those that are apt 
to envy. 

Concerning those that are more or less sub- 
ject to envy : First, persons of eminent virtue, 
when they are advanced, are less envied ; for 
their fortune seemeth but due unto them ; and 
no man envieth the payment of a debt, but 
rewards and liberality rather. Again, envy is 
ever joined with the comparing of a man's 
self; and where there is no comparison, no 
envy ; and therefore kings are not envied but 
by kings. Nevertheless it is to be noted, that 
unworthy persons are most envied at their first 
coming in, and afterwards overcome it better ; 
whereas, contrariwise / persons of worth and 
merit are most envied when their fortune coil- 
M 



34 OF ENVl'. 

tinueth long; for by that time, though their 
virtue be the same, yet it hath not the same 
lustre, for fresh men grow up to darken it. 

Persons of noble blood are less envied in 
their rising ; for it seemeth but right done tc 
their birth : besides, there seemeth not much 
added to their fortune ; and envy is as the sun- 
beams, that beat hotter upon a bank or steep 
rising ground than upon a flat ; and for the same 
reason, those that are advanced by degrees are 
less envied than those that are advanced sud- 
denly, and "per sal turn." 

Those that have joined with their honour 
great travels, cares, and perils, are less subject 
to envy ; for men think that they earn their 
honours hardly, and pity them sometimes ; and 
pity ever healeth envy : wherefore you shall 
observe, that the more deep and sober sort of 
politic persons, in their greatness, are ever be- 
moaning themselves what a life they lead, 
chanting a "quanta patimur;" not that they 
feel it so, but only to abate the edge of envy : 
but this is to be understood of business that is 
laid upon men, and not such as they call unto 
themselves ; for nothing increaseth envy more 
than an unnecessary and ambitious engrossing 
of business ; and nothing doth extinguish envy 
more than for a great person to preserve all 
other inferior officers in their full rights and 
pre-eminences of their places; for by that 
means there b^ so many screens between him 
and envy. 



/ 



. OP ENVY. 35 

Above all, those are most subject to envy, 
v;hich carry the greatness of their fortunes in 
an insolent and proud manner : being never 
well but while they are showing how great 
they are, either by outward pomp, or by tri- 
umphing over all opposition or competition : 
whereas wise men will rather do sacrifice to 
envy, in suffering themselves sometimes ot 
purpose to be crossed and overborne in 
things that do not much concern them. Not- 
withstanding so much is true, that the carriage 
of greatness in a plain and open manner (so 
it be without arrogancy and vain glory) doth 
draw less envy than if it be in a more crafty 
and cunning fashion ; for in that course a man 
doth but disavow fortune, and seemeth to be 
conscious of his own want in worth, and doth 
but teach others to envy him. 

Lastly, to conclude this part ; as we said 
in the beginning that the act of envy had 
somewhat in it of witchcraft, so there is no 
other care of envy but the cure of witchcraft ; 
and that is, to remove the lot, (as they call it,) 
and to lay it upon another ; for which purpose 
the wiser sort of great persons bring in ever 
upon the stage somebody upon whom to de- 
rive the envy that would come upon them- 
selves; sometimes upon ministers and ser- 
vants, sometimes upon colleagues and associ- 
ates, and the like ; and for that turn there are 
never wanting some persons of violent and 
undertaking natures, who, so they may have 
power and business, will take it at any cost. 



36 OP ENVY. 

Now, to speak of public envy : there is yet 
some good in public envy, whereas in private 
there is none; for public envy is as an ostra- 
cism, that eclipseth men when they grow too 
great : and therefore it is a bridle also to great 
ones to keep within bounds. 

This envy being in the Latin word " invi- 
dia," goeth in the modern languages by the 
name of discontentment ; of which we shall 
speak in handling sedition : it is a disease in 
a state like to infection : for as infection 
spreadeth upon that which is sound, and taint- 
eth it ; so, when envy is gotten once into a 
state, it traduceth even the best actions thereof, 
and turneth them into an ill odour ; and there- 
fore there is little won by intermingling of 
plausible actions : for that doth argue but a 
weakness and fear of envy, which hurteth so 
much the more, as it is likewise usual in in- 
fections, which, if you fear them, you call them 
upon you. 

This public envy seemeth to bear chiefly 
upon principal officers or ministers, rather than 
upon kings and states themselves. But this is 
a sure rule, that if the envy upon the minister 
be great, when the cause of it in him is small ; 
or if the envy be general in a manner upon all 
the ministers of an estate, then the envy 
(though hidden) is truly upon the state itself 
And so much of public envy or discontent, and 
the difference thereof from private envy, which 
was handled in the first place* 



OF LOVE. 37 

We will add this in general, touching the af- 
fection of envy, that of all other affections it 
is the most importune and continual ; for of 
other affections there is occasion given but now 
and then; and therefore it was well said, 
" Invidia festos dies non agit :" for it is ever 
working upon some or other. And it is also 
noted, that love and envy do make a man pine, 
which other affections do not, because they are 
not so continual. It is also the vilest affection, 
and the most depraved ; for which cause it is 
the proper attribute of the devil, who is called, 
" The envious man, that soweth tares amongst 
the wheat by night;" as it always cometh to 
pass, that envy worketh subtly, and in the 
dark, and to the prejudice of good things, such 
as is the wheat. 



OF LOVE. 



The stage is more beholding to love than 
the life of man ; for as to the stage, love is 
ever matter of comedies, and now and then 
of tragedies ; but in life it doth much mis- 
chief ; sometimes like a siren, sometimes like 
a fury. You may observe, that, amongst all 
the groat and worthy persons, (whereof the 
raemorv remaineth, either ancient or recent,) 
there is not one that hath been transported to 
the mad degree of love ; which shows that 
great spirits and great business do keep out 
4 



38 OP LOVE. 

this weak passion. You must except, never- 
theless, Marcus Antonius, the half partner of 
the empire of Rome, and Appius Claudius, the 
decemvir and lawgiver; whereof the former 
was indeed a voluptuous man and inordinate ; 
hut the latter was an austere and wise man : 
and therefore it seems (though rarely) that 
love can find entrance, not only into an open 
heart, but also into a heart well fortified, if 
watch be not well kept. It is a poor saying 
of Epicurus, " Satis magnum alter alteri thea- 
trum sumus ;" as if man, made for the con- 
templation of heaven, and all noble objects, 
should do nothing but kneel before a little 
idol, and make himself a subject, though not 
of the mouth, (as beasts are,) yet of the eye, 
which was given him for higher purposes. It 
is a strange thing to note the excess of this 
passion, and how it braves the nature and value 
of things by this, that the speaking in a per- 
petual hyperbole is comely in nothing but in 
love : neither is it merely in the phrase ; for 
whereas it hath been well said, "that the 
arch flatterer, with whom all the pretty flat- 
terers have intelligence, is a man's self;" cer- 
tainly the lover is more ; for there was never 
a proud man thought so absurdly well of him- 
self as the lover doth of the person loved; 
and therefore it was well said, "that it is 
impossible to love and to be wise." Neither 
doth this weakness appear to others only, and 
not to the party loved, but to the loved most 
of all, except the love be reciprocal ; for it is 



OF LOVE. 39 

a true rule, that love is ever rewarded either 
with the reciprocal or with an inward or secret 
contempt ; by how much more the men ough' 
to beware of this passion, which loseth noi 
only other things, but itself. As for the other 
losses, the poet's relation doth well figure 
them ; u that he that preferred Helena quitted 
the gifts of Juno and Pallas ;" for whoso- 
ever esteemeth too much of amorous affection 
quitteth both riches and wisdom. This pas- 
sion hath its floods in the very times of weak- 
ness, which are, great prosperity and great ad- 
versity, though this latter hath been less 
observed; both which times kindle love, and 
make it more fervent, and therefore show it to 
be the child of folly. They do best, who, if 
they cannot but admit love, yet make it keep 
quarter, and sever it wholly from their serious 
affairs and actions of life ; for, if it check once 
with business, it troubleth men's fortunes, and 
maketh men chat they can no ways be true to 
their own ends. I know not how, but mar- 
tial men are given to love ; I think it is but as 
they are given to wine ; for perils commonly 
ask to be paid in pleasures. There is in man's 
nature a secret inclination and motion towards 
love of others, which, K it be not spent upon 
some one, or a few, doth naturally spread it- 
self towards many, and maketh men become 
humane and charitable, as it is seen sometimes 
in friars. Nuptial love maketh mankind; 
friendly love perfecteth it; but wanton love 
corrupt rlh and embaseth it. 



40 OP GREAT PLACE 



OF GREAT PLACE. 



Men in great place are thrice servants 
servants of the sovereign or state, servants of 
fame, and servants of business; so as they 
have no freedom, neither in their persons, nor 
in their actions, nor in their times. It is a 
strange desire to seek power and to lose 
liberty ; or to seek power over others, and to 
lose power over a man's self. The rising unto 
place is laborious, and by pains men come to 
greater pains ; and it is sometimes base, and 
by indignities men come to dignities. The 
standing is slippery, and the regress is either 
a downfall, or at least an eclipse, which is a 
melancholy thing : " Cum non sis qui fueris, 
non esse cur velis vivere ?" Nay, retire men 
cannot when they would, neither will they 
when it were reason; but are impatient of 
privateness even in age and sickness, which 
require the shadow ; like old townsmen, that 
will be still sitting at their street door, though 
thereby they offer age to scorn. Certain- 
ly great persons had need to borrow other 
men's opinions to think themselves happy ; 
for if they judge by their own feeling, they 
cannot find it : but if they think with them- 
selves what other men think of them, and that 
other men would fain be as they are, then they 
are happy as it were by report, when perhaps 
they find the contrary within : for they are 
the first that find their own griefs, though they 



OF GREAT PLACE. 41 

be the last that find their own faults. Cer- 
tainly, men in great fortunes are strangers to 
themselves, and while they are in the puzzle 
of business they have no time to tend their 
health either of body or mind : " Illi mors 
gravis incubat, qui notus nimis omnibus, igno- 
tus moritur sibi." In place there is license to 
do good and evil ; whereof the latter is a 
curse : for in evil the best condition is not to 
will ; the second not to can. But power to do 
good is the true and lawful end of aspiring : for 
good thoughts (though God accept them, yet) 
towards men are little better than good dreams 
except they be put in act ; and that cannot be 
without power and place, as the vantage and 
commanding ground. Merit and good works is 
the end of man's motion ; and conscience o e 
the same is the accomplishment of man's rest : 
for if a man can be partaker of God's theatre, 
he shall likewise be partaker of God's rest : 
" Et conversus Deus, ut aspiceret opera, qu?e 
fecenmt manus suse, vidit quod omnia essent 
bona nimis ;*' and then the sabbath. In the 
discharge of thy place set before thee the best 
examples ; for imitation is a.^lobe of precepts ; 
and after a time set before thee thine own ex- 
ample ; and examine thyself strictly whetner 
thou didst not best at first. Neglect not also 
the examples of those that have carried them- 
selves ill in the same place ; not to set off thy- 
self by taxing their memory, but to direct thy- 
self what to avoid. Reform, therefore, without 
bravery or scandal of former times and persons ; 
4* 



42 OF GREAT PLACE. 

but yet set it down to thyself, as well to create 
good precedents as to follow thern. Reduce 
things to the first institution, and observe 
wherein and how they have degenerated ; but 
yet ask counsel of both times ; of the ancient 
time what is best ; and of the latter time what 
is fittest. Seek to make thy course regular, 
that men may know beforehand what they 
may expect; but be not too positive and peremp- 
tory ; and express thyself well when thou di- 
gressest from thy rule. Preserve the right of 
thy place, but stir not questions of jurisdiction ; 
and rather assume thy right in silence, and 
" de facto," than voice it with claims and 
challenges. Preserve likewise the rights of 
inferior places ; and think it more honour to 
direct in chief than to be busy in all. Embrace 
and invite helps and advices touching the exe- 
cution of thy place , and do not drive awa) 
such as bring thee information as meddlers, but 
accept of them in good part. The vices of 
authority are chiefly four ; delays, corruption, 
roughness, and facility. For delays, give easy 
access ; keep times appointed ; go through 
with that which is in hand, and interlace not 
business but of necessity. For corruption, 
do not only bind thine own hands or thy ser- 
vant's hands from taking, but bind the hands 
of suitors also from offering ; for integrity used 
doth the one ; but integrity professed, and with 
a manifest detestation of bribery, doth the 
other ; and avoid not only the fault, but the 
suspicion. Whosoever is found variable, and 



OF GREAT PLACE. 43 

changeth manifestly without manifest cause, 
giveth suspicion of corruption ; therefore, al- 
ways, when thou changest thine opinion or 
course, profess it plainly, and declare it, to- 
gether with the reasons that move thee to 
change, and do not think to steal it. A ser- 
vant or a favourite, if he be inward, and no 
other apparent cause of esteem, is commonly 
thought but a by-way to close corruption. For 
roughness, it is a needless cause of discontent : 
severity breedeth fear, but roughness breedeth 
hate. Even reproofs from authority ought to 
be grave, and not taunting. As for facility, it 
is worse than bribery ; for bribes come but 
now and then ; but if importunity or idle re- 
spects lead a man, he shall never be without ; 
as Solomon saith, " To respect persons it is not 
good, for such a man will transgress for a piece 
of bread." It is most true that w r as anciently 
spoken, " A place showeth the man ; and it 
showeth some to the better, and some to the 
worse :" " omnium consensu, capax imperii, 
nisi imperasset," saith Tacitus of Galba; but 
of Vespasian he saith, " solus imperantium, 
Vespasianus mutatus in melius;" though the 
one was meant of sufficiency, the other of 
manners and affection. It is an assured sign 
of a worthy and generous spirit, whom honour 
amends ; for honour is, or should be, the place 
of virtue ; and as in nature things move vio- 
lently to their place, and calmly in their place, 
so virtue in ambition is violent, in authority 
settled and calm. All rising to great place is 



44 OF BOLDNESS. 

by a winding stair : and, if there be factions, it 
is good to side a man's self whilst he is in the 
rising, and to balance himself when he is 
placed. Use the memory of thy predecessor 
fairly and tenderly; for, if thou dost not, it 
is a debt will sure be paid when thou art 
gone. If thou have colleagues, respect them ; 
and rather call them when they look not for it, 
than exclude them when they have reason to 
look to be called. Be not too sensible or too 
remembering of thy place in conversation and 
private answers to suitors ; but let it rather be 
said, " When he sits in place he is another 
man." 



OF BOLDNESS. 



It is a trivial grammar-school text, but yet 
worthy a wise man's consideration. Question 
was asked of Demosthenes what was the chief 
part of an orator ? he answered, action : what 
next ? action : what next again ? action. He 
said it that knew it best, and had by nature 
himself no advantage in that he commended. 
A strange thing, that that part of an orator 
which is but superficial, and rather the virtue 
of a player, should be placed so high above 
those other noble parts of invention, elocution, 
and the rest; nay, almost alone, as if it were 
all in all. But the reason is plain. There is 
in human nature generally more of the fool 
than of the wise ; and therefore those facul- 



OF BOLDNESS. 45 

ties by which the foolish part of men's minds 
is taken are most potent. Wonderful like 
is the case of boldness in civil business; 
what first ? boldness : what second and third ? 
boldness. And yet boldness is a child of ig- 
norance and baseness, far inferior to other 
parts : but, nevertheless, it doth fascinate, and 
bind hand and foot those that are either shal- 
low in judgment or weak in courage, which 
are the greatest part : yea, and prevaileth with 
wise men at weak times ; therefore we see it 
hath done wonders in popular states, but with 
senates and princes less ; and more, ever upon 
the first entrance of bold persons into action 
than soon after ; for boldness is an ill keeper 
of promise. Surely, as there are mountebanks 
for the natural body, so are there mountebanks 
for the politic body ; men that undertake great 
cures, and perhaps have been lucky in two or 
three experiments, but want the ground of 
science, and therefore cannot hold out : nay, 
you shall see a bold fellow many times do Ma- 
homet's miracle. Mahomet made the people 
believe that he would call a hill to him, and 
from the top of it offer up his prayers for the 
observers of his law. The people assembled : 
Mahomet called the hill to come to him again 
and again ; and when the hill stood still he was 
never a whit abashed, but said, " If the hill 
will not come to Mahomet, Mahomet will go to 
the fiii)." So these men, when they have prom- 
ised great matters, and failed most shamefully, 
yet (if they have the perfection of boldness) 



46 OF GOODNESS, AND 

they will but slight it over, and make a turn, and 
no more ado. Certainly, to men of great judg- 
ment, bold men are sport to behold ; nay, and 
to the vulgar, also, boldness hath somewhat of 
the ridiculous : for, if absurdity be the subject 
of laughter, doubt you not but great boldness 
is seldom without some absurdity ; especially 
it is a sport to see when a bold fellow is out 
of countenance, for that puts his face into a 
most shrunken and wooden posture, as needs 
it must : for in bashfulness the spirits do a lit- 
tle go and come ; but with bold men, upon like 
occasion, they stand at a stay ; like a stale at 
che«s, where it is no mate, but yet the game 
cannot stir : but this last were fitter for a sat- 
ire than for a serious observation. This is 
well to be weighed, that boldness is ever 
blind ; for it seeth not dangers and inconve- 
niences : therefore it is ill in counsel, £ood in 
execution ; so that the right use of bold per- 
sons is, that they never command in chief, but 
be seconds, and under the direction of others I 
for in counsel it is good to see dangers, and in 
execution not to see them, except they be very 
great. 



Ol GOODNESS, AND GOODNESS OF NATURE 

I take goodness in this sense, the affecting 
of the weal of men, which is that the Gre- 
cians cali Philanthropia ; and the word hu- 
manity (as it is used) is a little too light to 
express it. Goodness I call the habit, and 



GOODNESS OF NATURE. 47 

goodness of nature the inclination. This, oJ 
all virtues and dignities of the mind, is th< 
greatest, being the character of the Deity 
and without it man is a busy, mischievous 
wretched thing, no better than a kind of ver 
min. Goodness answers to the theological 
virtue charity, and admits no excess but error. 
The desire of power in excess caused the an- 
gels to fall ; the desire of knowledge in excess 
caused man to fall : but in charity there is no ex- 
cess, neither can angel or man come in danger 
by it. The inclination to goodness is imprinted 
deeply in the nature of man ; insomuch that, 
if it issue not towards men, it will take unto 
other living creatures ; as it is seen in the 
Turks, a cruel people, who nevertheless are 
kind to beasts, and give alms to dogs and 
birds; insomuch, as Busbechius reporteth, a 
Christian boy in Constantinople had like to 
have been stoned for gagging in a waggishness 
a long-billed fowl. Errors, indeed, in this vir- 
tue, in goodness or charity, may be committed. 
The Italians have an ungracious proverb, 
" Tanto buon che val niente ;" " So good, that 
he is good for nothing:" and one of the doc- 
tors of Italy, Nicholas Machiavel, had the 
confidence to put in writing, almost in plain 
terms, " That the Christian faith had given up 
good men in prey to those that are tyrannical 
and unjust ;" which he spake, because, indeed, 
there was never law, or sect, or opinion, did so 
much magnify goodness as the Christian reli- 
gion doth * therefore, to avoid the scandal, and 



< 



48 OF GOODNESS, AND 

the danger both it is good to take knowledge 
of the errors of a habit so excellent. Seek 
the good of other men, but be not in bondage 
to their faces or fancies ; for that is but facility 
or softness, which taketh an honest mind pris- 
oner. Neither give thou iEsop's cock a gem, 
who would be better pleased and happier if he 
had a barley-corn. The example of God 
teacheth this lesson truly ; " He sendeth his 
rain, and maketh his sun to shine upon the 
just and the unjust;" but he doth not rain 
wealth, nor shine honour and virtues upon 
men equally : common benefits are to be com- 
municated with all, but peculiar benefits with 
choice. And beware how, in making the por- 
traiture, thou breakest the pattern : for divinity 
maketh the love of ourselves the pattern ; the 
love of our neighbours but the portraiture. 
" Sell all thou hast, and give it to the poor, and 
follow me :" but sell not all thou hast, except 
thou come and follow me ; that is, except thou 
nave a vocation wherein thou mayest do as 
much good with little means as with great ; 
for, otherwise, in feeding the streams, thou dri- 
est the fountain. Neither is there only a habit 
of goodness directed by right reason; but 
there is in some men, even in nature, a dispo- 
sition towards it; as, on the other side, there 
is a natural malignity : for there be that in 
their nature do not affect the good of others 
The lighter sort of malignity turneth but to a 
crossness, or frowardness, or aptness to oppose, 
or dirhcileness, or the like ; but the deeper 



GOODNESS OP NATURE. 49 

sort to envy or mere mischief. Such men, in 
other men's calamities, are, as it were, in sea- 
son, and are ever on the loading parts : not so 
good as the dogs that licked Lazarus' sores, 
but like Hies that are still buzzing upon any 
thing that is raw ; misanthropi, that make it 
their practice to bring men to the bough, and yet 
have never a tree for the purpose in their gar- 
dens, as Timon had : such dispositions are the 
very errors of human nature, and yet they are 
the fittest timber to make great politics of; 
like to knee timber, that is good for ships that 
are ordained to be tossed, but not for building 
houses that shall stand firm. The parts and 
signs of goodness are many. If a man be 
gracious and courteous to strangers, it shows 
he is a citizen of the world, and that his heart 
is no island cut oif from other lands, but r. 
continent that joins to them : if he be com- 
passionate towards the afflictions of others, it 
shows that his heart is like the noble tree that 
is wounded itself when it gives the balm : if 
he easily pardons and remits offences, it shows 
that his mind is planted above injuries, so that 
he cannot be shot : if he be thankful for small 
benefits, it shows that he weighs men's minds, 
and not their trash : but, above all, if h? have 
St. Paul's perfection, that he would wish to be 
an anathema from Christ, for the salvation of 
his brethren, it shows much of a divine na- 
ture, and a kind of conformity with Christ 
himself. 

N 



50 OP A KiNG. 



OF A KING. 

1. A king is a mortal god on earth, untc 
whom the living God hath lent his own name 
as a great honour ; but withal told him, he 
should die like a man, lest he should be proud, 
and flatter himself that God hath with his 
name imparted unto him his nature also. 

2. Of all kind of men, God is the least be- 
holding unto them; for he doeth most for 
them, and they do ordinarily least for him. 

3. A. king, that would not feel his crown too 
heavy for him, must wear it every day ; but il 
he think it too light, he knoweth not of what 
metal it is made. 

4. He must make religion the rule of gov- 
ernment, and not to balance the scale ; for he 
that casteth in religion only to make the scales 
even, his own weight is contained in those char- 
acters, " Mene, mene, tekel upharsin," " He 
is found too light, his kingdom shall be taken 
from him." 

5. And that king that holds not religion the 
best reason of state, is void of all piety and 
justice, the supporters of a king. 

6. He must be able to give counsel himself, 
but not rely thereupon ; for though happy 
events justify their counsels, yet it is better 
that the evil event of good advice be rather 
imputed to a subject than a sovereign. 

7. He is the fountain of lioncur, which 
should not run with a waste pine, lest the 



OF A KING. 51 

courtiers sell the water, and then (as papists 
say of their holy wells) it loses the virtue. 

8. He is the life of the law, not only as he 
is " lex loquens" himself, but because he an- 
imateth the dead letter, making it active to- 
wards all his subjects, "praemio et poena." 

9. A wise king must do less in altering his 
laws than he may ; for new government is ever 
dangerous ; it being true in the body politic, as 
in the corporal, that " omnis subita immutatio 
est periculosa:" and though it be for the bet- 
ter, yet it is not without a fearful apprehen- 
sion; for he that changeth the fundamental 
laws of a kingdom thinketh there is no good 
title to a crown but by conquest. 

10. A king that setteth to sale seats of jus- 
tice oppresseth the people ; for he teacheth his 
judges to sell justice ; and " precio parata pre- 
cio venditur justitia." 

11. Bounty and magnificence are virtues 
very regal, but a prodigal king is nearer a ty- 
rant than a parsimonious ; for store at home 
draweth not his contemplations abroad; but 
want suppiieth itself of what is next, and 
many times the next way : a king herein must 
be wise, and know what he may justly do. 

12. That king which is not feared is not 
loved ; and he that is well seen in his craft 
must as well study to be feared as loved ; yet 
not loved for fear, but feared for love. 

13. Therefore, as he must always resemble 
him whose great name he beareth, and that as 
in manifesting the sweet influence of his mercy 



£2 OP A KING. 

on the severe stroke of his justice sometimes, 
so in this not to suffer a man of death to live ; 
for, besides that the land doth mourn, the re- 
straint of justice towards sin doth more retard 
the affection of love than the extent of mercy 
doth inflame it ; and sure where love is [ill] 
bestowed, fear is quite lost. 

14. His greatest enemies are his flatterers ; 
for though they ever speak on his side, yet 
their words still make against him. 

15 t The love which a king oweth to a weal 
public should not be restrained to any one par- 
ticular ; yet that his more special favour do re- 
flect upon some worthy ones is somewhat 
necessary, because there are few of that 
capacity. 

16. He must have a special care of five 
things, if he would not have his crown to be 
put to him " infelix felicitas :" 

First, that " simulata sanctitas" be not in 
the church ; for that is " duplex iniquitas :" 

Secondly, that "inutilis sequitas" sit. not 
in the chancery : for that is " inepta miseri- 
cordia :" 

Thirdly, that "utilis iniquitas" keep not 
the exchequer : for that is " crudele latrocin- 
ium:" 

Fourthly, that " fidelis temeritas" be not 
his general : for that will bring but " seram 
poenitentiam :" 

Fifthly, that "infidelis prudentia*' be not 
his secretary : for that is " anguis sub viridi 
herba." 



OF NOBILITY. 53 

lb conclude ; as he is of the greatest pow- 
er, so he is subject to the greatest cares, made 
the servant of his people, or else he were 
without a calling at all. 

He, then, that honoureth him not is next 
an atheist, wanting the fear of God in his 
heart. 



OF NOBILITY. 



We will speak of nobility first as a portion 
of an estate, then as a condition of particular 
persons. A monarchy, where there is no nobil- 
ity at all, is ever a pure and absolute tyranny, 
as that of the Turks ; for nobility attempers 
sovereignty, and draws the eyes of the people 
somewhat aside from the line loyal : but for 
democracies they need it not ; and they are 
commonly more quiet, and less subject to sedi- 
tion, than where there are stirps of nobles , 
for men's eyes are upon the business, and not 
upon the persons ; or if upon the persons, it is 
for the business' sake, as fittest, and not for 
flags and pedigree. We see the Switzers last 
well, notwithstanding their diversity of reli- 
gion and of cantons ; for utility is their bond, 
and not respects. The united provinces of 
the Low Countries in their government ex- 
cel ; fcr where there is an equality the con- 
sultations are more indifferent, and the pay- 
ments and tributes more cheerful. A great 
and potent nobility addeth majesty to a mon- 



54 OP NOBILITY. 

arch, but diminisheth power ; and putteth lile 
and spirit into the people, but presseth their 
fortune. It is well when nobles are not too 
great'for sovereignty nor for justice ; and yet 
maintained in that height, as the insolency of 
inferiors may be broken upon them before it 
come on too fast upon the majesty of kings. 
A numerous nobility causeth poverty and in- 
convenience in a state, for it is a surcharge of 
expense ; and, besides, it being of necessity 
that many of the nobility fall in time to be 
weak in fortune, it maketh a kind of dispro- 
portion between honour and means. 

As for nobility in particular persons, it is a 
reverend thing to see an ancient castle or 
building not in decay, or to see a fair timber 
tree sound and perfect; how much mure to 
behold an ancient noble family, which hath 
stood against the waves and weathers of time ? 
for new nobility is but the act of power, but an- 
cient nobility is the act of time. Those that 
are first raised to nobility are commonly more 
virtuous, but less innocent than their descend- 
ants ; for there is rarely any rising but by a 
commixture of good and evil arts : but it is 
reason the memory of their virtues remain to 
their posterity, and their faults die with them- 
selves. Nobility of birth commonly abateth 
industry ; and he that is not industrious envi- 
eth him that is ; besides, noble persons cannot 
go much higher : and he that standeth at a 
stay when others rise can hardly avoid mo- 
tions of envy. On the other side, nobility ex- 






>F SEDITIONS AND TROUBLES. 55 

ti»£«fcrsnc4;h the passive envy from others 
towards the,m, because they are in posses- 
sion ot honour Certainly, kings that have 
able men of their noDihty shall find ease in 
employing them, and a better slide into their 
business ; for people naturally bend to them 
as born in some sort to command. 



OF SEDITIONS AND TROUBLES 

Shepherds of people had need know tile 
calendars of tempests in states, which are com- 
monly greatest when things grow to equality , 
as natural tempests are greatest about the equi- 
noctia ; and as there are certain hollow blasts 
of wind and secret swellings of seas before a 
tempest, so are there in states : 

"Ille etiam easels instare tumultus 

Saepe monet, fraudesque et operta tumescere bella." 

Libels and licentious discourses against the 
state, when they are frequent and open ; and 
in like sort false newr often running up and 
down, to the disadvantage of the state, and 
hastily embraced, are amongst the signs of 
troubles. Virgil, giving the pedigree of Fame, 
saith she was sister to the giants : 

11 Illam terra parens, ira irritata deorum, 
Extremam (ut perhibent) Cceo Enceladoque sororem 
Progenuit." JEneid, IV. 177. 

As if fames were the relics of seditions past ; 
but they are no less indeed the preludes of se- 



56 OF SEDITIONS 

ditions to come. Howsoever he notetfe it 
right, that seditious tumults and seditious 
fames differ no more but as brother and^ sister, 
masculine and feminine ; especially if it come 
to that, that the best actions of a state, and 
the most plausible, and which ought to give 
greatest contentment, are taken in ill sense, 
and traduced : for that shows the envy great, 
as Tacitus saith, u conflata, magna invidia, seu 
bene, seu male, gesta premunt." Neither 
doth it follow, that because these fames are a 
sign of troubles, that the suppressing of them 
with too much severity should be a remedy 
of troubles ; for the despising of them many 
times checks them best, and the going about 
to stop them doth but make a wonder long 
lived. Also that kind of obedience, which 
Tacitus speaketh of, is to be held suspected : 
" Erant in officio, sed tamen qui mallent man- 
data imperantium interpietari, quam exequi ;" 
disputing, excusing, cavilling upon mandates 
and directions, is a kind of shaking off the 
yoke, and assay of disobedience ; especially 
if- in those disputings, they which are for the 
direction speak fearfully and tenderly, and 
those that are against it audaciously. 

Also, as Machiavel noteth well, when prin- 
ces, that ought to be common parents, make 
themselves as a party, and lean to a side ; it is 
as a boat that is overthrown by uneven weight 
on the one side : as was well seen in the 
time of Henry the Third of France ; for first 
himself entered league for the extirpation of 



AND TROUBLES. 67 

the protestants, and presently after the same 
league was turned upon himself: for when the 
authority of princes is made but an accessary 
to a cause, and that there be other bands that 
tie faster than the band of sovereignty, kings 
begin to be put almost out of possession. 

Also, when discords, and quarrels, and fac- 
tions, are carried openly and audaciously, it is 
a sign the reverence of government is lost ; 
for the motions of the greatest persons in a 
government ought to be as the motions of the 
planets under "primum mobile,' 5 (according 
to the old opinion,) which is, that every of 
them is carried swiftly by the highest motion, 
and softly in their own motion : and, there- 
fore, when great ones in their own particular 
motion move violently, and, as Tacitus ex- 
presseth it well, " liberius quam ut imperanti- 
um meminissent," it is a sign the orbs are out 
of frame : for reverence is that wherewith 
princes are girt from God, who threateneth 
the dissolving thereof; " solvam cingula re- 
gum." 

So when any of the four pillars of government 
are mainly shaken, or weakened, (which are 
religion, justice, counsel, and treasure,) men 
had need to pray for fair weather. But let us 
pass from this part of predictions, (concerning 
which, nevertheless, more light may be taken 
from that, which followeth,) and let us speak 
first of the materials of seditions, then of the 
motives of them, and thirdly of the reme- 
dies. 



58 OF SEDITIONS 

Concerning the materials of seditions, it is 
a thing well to be considered ; for the surest 
way to prevent seditions (if the times do bear 
it) is to take away the matter of them ; for, 
if there be fuel prepared, it is hard to tell 
whence the spark shall come that shall set it 
on fire. The matter of seditions is of two 
kinds, much poverty and much discontent- 
ment. It is certain, so many overthrown es- 
tates, so many votes for troubles. Lucan noteth 
well the state of Rome before the civil war: 

u Hinc usura vorax, rapidumque in tempore feenus, 
Hinc concussa fides, et niultis utile bellum." 

This same " multis utile bellum" is an assur- 
ed and infallible sign of a state disposed to se- 
ditions and troubles ; and if this poverty and 
broken estate in the better sort be joined with 
a want and necessity in the mean people, the 
danger is imminent and great : for the rebel- 
lions of the belly are the worst. As for dis- 
contentments, they are in the politic body like 
to humours in the natural, which are apt to 
gather a preternatural heat and to inflame ; and 
let no prince measure the danger of them by 
this, whether they be just or unjust : for that 
were to imagine people to be too reasonable, 
who do often spurn at their own good; nor 
yet by this, whether the griefs whereupon they 
rise be in fact great or small ; for they are the 
most dangerous discontentments where the 
fear is greater than the feeling : " Dolendi mo- 
dus, timendi non item :" besides, in great op- 



AND TROUBLES. 59 

pressions, the same things that provoke the 
patience do withal meet the courage ; but in 
fears it is not so : neither let any prince, or 
state, be secure concerning discontentments 
because they have been often, or have been 
long, and yet no peril hath ensued : for as it is 
true that every vapour, or fume, doth not turn 
into a storm, so it is nevertheless true, that 
storms, though they blow over divers times, yet 
may fall at last ; and, as the Spanish proverb 
noteth well, " The cord breaketh at the last 
by the weakest pull." 

The causes and motives of seditions are, 
innovation in religion, taxes, alteration of laws 
and customs, breaking of privileges, general 
oppression, advancement of unworthy persons, 
strangers, deaths, disbanded soldiers, factions 
grown desperate ; and whatsoever in offending 
people joineth and knitteth them in a common 
cause. 

For the remedies, there may be some gen- 
eral preservatives, whereof we will speak : as 
for the just cure, it must answer to the partic- 
ular disease ; and so be left to counsel rather 
than rule. 

The first remedy, or prevention, is to re- 
move, by all means possible, that material 
cause of sedition whereof we speak, which 
is, want and poverty in the estate ; to which 
purpose serveth the opening and well balanc- 
ing of trade ; the cherishing of manufactures , 
the banishing of idleness ; the repressing oi 
waste and excess, bv sumptuary laws ; the im- 



60 OF SEDITIONS 

provement and husbanding of the soil; the 
regulating of prices of things vendible; the 
moderating of taxes and tributes, and the like. 
Generally, it is to be foreseen that the popula- 
tion of a kingdom (especially if it be not 
mown down by wars) do not exceed the stock 
of the kingdom which should maintain them : 
neither is the population to be reckoned only 
by number ; for a smaller number that spend 
more and earn less, do wear out an estate 
sooner than a greater number that live low 
and gather more : therefore, the multiplying 
of nobility, and other degrees of quality, in 
an over-proportion to the common people, doth 
speedily bring a state to necessity ; and so 
doth likewise an overgrown clergy, for they 
bring nothing to the stock; and in like man- 
ner, when more are bred scholars than pre- 
ferments can take off. 

It is likewise to be remembered that, foras- 
much as the increase of any estate must be up- 
on the foreigner, (for whatsoever is somewhere 
gotten is somewhere lost,) there be but three 
things which one nation selleth unto another ; 
the commodity as nature yieldeth it ; the man- 
ufacture ; and the vecture, or carriage ; so that, 
if these three wheels go, wealth will flow as 
in a spring tide. And it cometh many times 
to pass, that " materiam superabit opus," that 
the work and carriage is worth more than the 
material, and enricheth a state more ; as is no- 
tably seen in the Low Country men, who have 
lie best mines above ground in the world. 



AND TK0UBLES. CI 

Above all things, good policy is to be used. 
that the treasure and moneys in a state be not 
gathered into few hands; for, otherwise, a 
state may have a great stock, and yet starve : 
and money i^ like muck d except it be 

spread. This is done chierly-by suppressing, 
the least, keeping a strait hand upon the 
devouring trades of usury, engrossing, great 
id the like. 
For removing discontentments, or, at least, 
inger of them, there is in every state (as 
low) two portions of subjects, the nobles 
and the commonalty. When one of these is 
discontent, the danger is not great : for com- 
mon people are ot slow motion, if ftey be not 
excited by the greater sort ; ana he greater 
re of small strength, except the multi- 
tude be apt, and ready to move o{ hemselves : 
then is the danger, when the greater sort 
do but wait for the troubling A the waters 
gst the meaner, that then they may de- 
themselves. The poets feign that the 
f the gods would have bound Jupiter, 
he hearing of, by the counsel oi Pallas, 
sent for Briareus, with his hundred hand-, to 
in to his aid : an emblem, no doubt, to 
how safe it is for monarchs to make sure 
_^ good will of common people. 
give moderate liberty for griefs and dis- 
contentments to evaporate (ao it be without 
too great insolency or bravery' is a safe way : 
for he that turneth the humours back, and 
maketh the wound bleed inwards, endan- 
6 



62 OF SEDITIONS 

gereth malign ulcers and pernicious irnposthu- 
mations. 

The part of Epimetheus might well become 
Prometheus, in the case of discontentments, 
for there is not a better provision against them. 
Epimetheus, when griefs and evils flew abroad, 
at last shut the lid, and kept hope in the bot- 
tom of the vessel. Certainly, the politic and 
artificial nourishing and entertaining of hopes, 
and carrying men from hopes to hopes, is one 
of the best antidotes against the poison of dis- 
contentments : and it is a certain sign of a 
wise government and proceeding, when it can 
hold men's hearts by hopes, when it cannot 
by satisfaction ; and when it can handle things 
in such manlier as no evil shall appear so per- 
emptory but that it hath some outlet of hope : 
which is the less hard to do, because both 
particular persons and factions are apt enough 
to flatter themselves, or, at least, to brave that 
which they believe not. 

Also the foresight and prevention, that there 
be no likely or fit head whereunto discontented 
persons may resort, and under whom they may 
join, is a known, but an excellent point of 
caution. I understand a fit head to be one 
that hath greatness and reputation, that hath 
confidence with the discontented ^arty, and 
upon whom they turn their eyes, and that 
is thought discontented in his own particular ; 
which kind of persons are either to be won 
and reconciled to the state, and that in a fast 
and true manner ; o r be fronted with some 



AND TROUBLES. 63 

other of the same party that may oppose them, 
and so divide the reputation. Generally, the 
dividing and breaking of all factions and com- 
binations' that are adverse to the stable and set- 
ting them at a distance, or, at least, distrust 
among themselves, is not one of the worst 
remedies ; for it is a desperate case, if those 
that hold with the proceeding of the state be 
full of discord and faction, and those that are 
against it be entire a^d united. 

I have noted, thaft some witty and sharp 
speeches, which have fallen from princes, have 
given fire to seditions. Caesar did himself in- 
finite hurt in that speech, " Sylla nescivit lite- 
ras, non potuit dictare ;" for it did utterly cut 
oif that hope which men had entertained, that 
he would at one time or other give over his 
dictatorship. Galba undid himself by that 
speech, " legi a se militem, non emi ;" for it 
put the soldiers out of hope of the donative : 
Probus, likewise, by that speech, " si vixero, 
non opus erit amplius Romano imperio militi- 
bus;" a speech of great despair for the sol- 
diers : and many the like. Surely princes had 
need, in tender matter and ticklish times, to 
beware what they say, especially in these 
short speeches, which fly abroad like darts, 
and are thought to be shot out of their secret 
intentions ; for as for large discourses, they 
are flat things, and not so much noted. 

Lastly, let princes, againiSt all events, not be 
without some great person, one, or rather more, 
of military valour, near unto them, for the re- 



64 OF ATHEISM. 

pressing of seditions in their beginnings ; for 
without that, there useth to be more trepida- 
tion in court upon the first breaking out of 
trouble than were fit ; and the state runneth 
the danger of that which Tacitus saith, " at- 
que is habitus animorum fuit, ut pessimum fa- 
cinus auderent pauci, plures vellent, omnes 
paterentur :" but let such military persons be 
assured, and well reputed of, rather than fac- 
tious and popular; holding also good corre- 
spondence with the other great men in the 
state, or else the remedy is worse than the 
disease. 



OF ATHEISM. 

I had rather believe all the fables in the le- 
gend, and the Talmud, and the Alcoran, than 
that this universal frame is without a mind; 
and, therefore, God never wrought miracles to 
convince atheism, because his ordinary works 
convince it. It is true, that a little philosophy 
inclineth man's mind to atheism, but depth in 
philosophy bringeth men's minds about to re- 
ligion ; for, while the mind of man looketh 
upon the second causes scattered, it may some- 
times rest in them, and go no farther ; but when 
it beholdeth the chain of them confederate, 
and linked together, it must needs fly to Prov- 
idence and Deity: nay, even that school, 
which is most accused of atheism, doth most 
demonstrate religion; that is, the school of 



OF ATHEISM. 65 

Leucippus, and Democritus, and Epicurus : 
for it is a thousand times more credible, that 
four mutable elements and one immutable fifth 
essence, duly and eternally placed, need no 
God, than that an army of infinite small por- 
tions, or seeds unplaced, should have produced 
this order and beauty without a divine mar- 
shal. The scripture saith, " The fool hath 
said in his heart. There is no God;" it is not 
said, " The fool hath thought in his heart ;" so 
as he rather saith it by rote to himself, as that he 
would have, than that he can thoroughly be- 
lieve it, or be persuaded of it ; for none deny 
there is a God but those for whom it maketh 
that there were no God. It appeareth in 
nothing more, that atheism is rather in the lip 
than in the heart of man, than by this, that 
atheists will ever be talking of that their opin- 
ion, as if they fainted in it within themselves, 
and would be glad to be strengthened by the 
opinion of others : nay, more, you shall have 
atheists strive to get disciples, as it fareth with 
other sects ; and, which is most of all, you shall 
have of them that will suffer for atheism, and 
not recant ; whereas, if they did truly think that 
there were no such thing as God, why should 
they trouble themselves ? Epicurus is charg- 
ed, that he did not dissemble for his credit's 
sake, when he affirmed there were blessed na- 
tures, but such as enjoyed themselves without 
having respect to the government of the world ; 
whe r iin they say he did temporize, though in 
secret he thought there \vas no God : but cer- 




66 OF ATHEISM. 

tainly he is traduced, for his words are noble 
and divine: " Non Deos vulgi negare profa- 
num ; sed vulgi opiniones diis applicare profa- 
num." Plato could have said no more ; and, 
although he had the confidence to deny the 
administration, he had not the power to deny 
the nature. The Indians of the west have 
names for their particular gods, though they 
have no name for God ; as if the heathens 
should have had the names Jupiter, Apollo, 
Mars, &c. but not the word Deus, which 
shows, that even those barbarous people 
have the notion, though they have not the lat- 
itude and extent of it : so that against atheists 
the very savages take part with the very subtl- 
est philosophers. The contemplative atheist 
is rare, a Diagoras, a Bion, a Lucian, perhaps, 
and some others ; and yet they seem to be more 
than they are ; for that all that impugn a re- 
ceived religion, or superstition, are, by the ad- 
verse part, branded with the name of atheists : 
but the great atheists indeed are hypocrites, 
which are ever handling holy things, but with- 
out feeling; so as they must needs be cau- 
terized in the end. The causes of atheism 
are, divisions in religion, if there be many; 
for any one main division addeth zeal to both 
sides, but many divisions introduce atheism 
another is, scandal of priests, when it is come 
to that which St- Bernard saith, "non est jam 
dicere, ut populus, sic sacerdos ; quia nee sic 
populus, ut sacerdos :" a third is, a custom of 
profane scoffing in holy matters, which dotii 



OF ATHEISM. 67 

by little and little, deface the reverence of re- 
ligion; and, lastly, learned times, especially 
with peace and prosperity; for troubles and 
adversities do more bow men's minds to reli- 
gion. They that deny a God destroy a man's 
nobility; for certainly man is of kin to the 
beasts by his body ; and, if he be not of kin 
to God by his spirit, he is a base and ignoble 
creature. It destroys, likewise, magnanimity, 
and the raising human nature ; for, take an ex- 
ample of a dog, and mark what a generosity 
and courage he will put on when he finds him- 
self maintained by a man, who to him is instead 
of a God, or " melior natura ;" which courage 
is manifestly such as that creature, without 
that confidence of a better nature than his 
own, could never attain. So man, when he 
resteth and assureth himself upon divine pro- 
tection and favour, gathereth a force and faith, 
which human nature in itself could not ob- 
tain ; therefore, as atheism is in all respects 
hateful, so in this, that it depriveth human na- 
ture of the means to exalt itself above human 
frailty. As it is in particular persons, so it is 
in nations : never was there such a state for 
magnanimity as Rome : of this state hear 
what Cicero saith : " Quam volumus, licet, pa- 
ties conscripti, nos amemus, tamen nee nume- 
ro Hispanos, nee robore Gallos, nee calliditate 
Pcenos, nee artibus Graecos, nee denique hoc 
ipso hujus gentis et terrae domestico nativoque 
sensu Italos ipsos et Latinos ; sed pietate, ac 



t>8 OF SUPERSTITION. 

religione, atque hac una sapientia, quod deo- 
rum immortalium numine omnia regi, guber- 
narique per speximus, omnes gentes nationes- 
que superavimus." 



OF SUPERSTITION. 

It were better to have no opinion of God at 
all than such an opinion as is unworthy of 
him ; for the one is unbelief, the other is con- 
tumely; and certainly superstition is the re- 
proach of the Deity. Plutarch saith well to 
that purpose : " Surely (saith he) I had rath- 
er a great deal men should say there was no 
such a man at all as Plutarch, than that they 
should say there was one Plutarch, that would 
eat his children as soon as they were born ;" 
as the poets speak of Saturn : and, as the con- 
tumely is greater towards God, so the danger 
is greater towards men. Atheism leaves a 
man to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety, 
to laws, to reputation : all which may be 
guides to an outward moral virtue, though re- 
ligion were not ; but superstition dismounts 
all these, and erecteth an absolute monarchy 
in the minds of men : therefore atheism did 
never perturb states : for it makes men wary 
of themselves, as looking no farther, and we 
see the times inclined to atheism (as the time 
of Augustus Caesar) were civil times : but su- 
perstition hath been the confusion of many 



OF SUPERSTITION. 69 

states, and bringeth in a new " primum mo- 
bile," that ravisheth all the spheres of gov- 
ernment. The master of superstition is the 
people, and in all superstition wise men fol- 
low fools ; and arguments are fitted to prac- 
tice in a reversed order. It was gravely said, 
by some of the prelates in the council of 
Trent, where the doctrine of the schoolmen 
bare great sway, that the schoolmen were like 
astronomers, which did feign eccentrics and 
epicicles, and such engines of orbs, to save the 
phenomena, though they knew there were no 
such things : and, in like manner, that the 
schoolmen had framed a number of subtile and 
intricate axioms and theorems, to save the 
practice of the church. The causes of super- 
stition are pleasing and sensual rites and cere- 
monies ; excess of outward and pharisaical 
holiness; over-great reverence of traditions, 
which cannot but load the church ; the strata- 
gems of prelates for their own ambition and 
lucre ; the favouring too much of good inten- 
tions, which openeth the gate to conceits and 
novelties ; the taking an aim at divine mat- 
ters by human, which cannot but breed mix- 
ture of imaginations; and, lastly, barbarous 
times, especially joined with calamities and 
disasters. Superstition, without a veil, is a 
deformed thing ; for, as it addeth deformity to 
an ape to be so like a man, so the similitude 
of superstition to religion makes it the more 
deformed : and, as wholesome meat corrupteth 
to little worms, so good forms and orders cor- 



70 OP TRAVEL. 

nipt into a number of petty observances. 
There is a superstition in avoiding supersti- 
tion, when men think to do best if they go 
farthest from the superstition formerly receiv- 
ed; therefore care should be had that (as it 
fareth in ill purgings) the good be not taken 
away with the bad, which commonly is done 
when the people is the reformer. 



OF TRAVEL. 



Travel, in the younger sort, is part of 
education ; in the elder, a part of experience. 
He that travelleth into a country, before he 
hath some entrance into the language, goeth 
to school, and not to travel. That young men 
travel under some tutor, or grave servant, I al- 
low well ; so that he be such a one that hath 
the language, and hath been in the country 
before ; whereby he may be able to tell them 
what things are worthy to be seen in the coun- 
try where they go, what acquaintances they 
are to seek, what exercises or discipline the 
place yieldeth; for else young men shall go 
hooded, and look abroad little. It is a strange 
thing that, in sea voyages, where there is 
nothing to be seen but sky and sea, men 
should make diaries; but in land travel, 
wherein so much is to be observed, for the 
most part they omit it ; as if chance were fitter 
to be registered than observation : let diaries, 
therefore, be brought in use. The things to 



OF TRAVEL. 71 

be seen and observed are the courts of prin- 
ces, especially when they give audience to 
imbassadors ; the courts of justice, while they 
sit and hear causes ; and so of consistories ec 
clesiastic ; the churches and monasteries, with 
the monuments that are therein extant; the 
walls and fortifications of cities and towns; 
and so the havens and harbours, antiquities and 
ruins, libraries, colleges, disputations, and lec- 
tures, where any are ; shipping and navies ; 
houses and gardens of state and pleasure, near 
great cities; armories-, arsenals, magazines, 
exchanges, burses, warehouses, exercises of 
horsemanship, fencing, training of soldiers, and 
the like ; comedies, such whereunto the better 
sort of persons do resort ; treasuries of jewels 
and robe* ; cabinets and rarities ; and, to con- 
clude, whatsoever is memorable in the places 
where they go ; after all which the tutors or 
servants ought to make diligent inquiry. As 
for triumphs, masks, feasts, weddings, funerals, 
capital executions, and such shows, men need 
not be put in mind of them : yet they are not 
to be neglected. If you will have a young 
man to put his travel into a little room, and in 
short time to gather much, this you must do : 
first, as was said, he must have some entrance 
into the language before he goeth ; then he 
must have such a servant, or tutor, as knoweth 
the country, as was likewise said : let him 
carry with him also some card, or book, de- 
scribing the country where he traveLeth, which 
will be a good key to his inquirv , let him 



"12 OF TRAVEL. 

keep also a diary; let him not stay long in 
one city or town, more or less as the place de- 
serveth, but not long ; nay, when he stayeth 
in one city or town, let him change his lodg- 
ing from one end and part of the town to an- 
other, which is a great adamant of acquaint- 
ance; let him sequester himself from the 
company of his countrymen, and diet in such 
places where there is good company of the 
nation where he travelleth : let him, upon his 
removes from one place to another, procure 
recommendation to some person of quality re- 
siding in the place whither he removeth, that 
he may use his favour in those things he 
desireth to see or know : thus he may abridge 
his travel with much profit. As for the ac- 
quaintance which is to be sought in travel, 
that which is most of all profitable is acquaint- 
ance with the secretaries and employed men 
of ambassadors : for so. in travelling in one 
country, he shall suck the experience of many : 
let him also see and visit eminent persons in 
all kinds, which are of great name abroad, 
that he may be able to tell how the life agreeth 
with the fame. For quarrels, they a^e with 
care and discretion to be avoided; they arc 
commonly for mistresses, healths, place, and 
words : and let a man beware how he keepeth 
company with choleric and quarrelsome per- 
sons, for they will engage him into their own 
quarrels. When a traveller returneth home, 
*et him not leave the countries where he hath 
travelled altogether behind him ; but maintair 



OF EMPIRE. 73 

a correspondence by letters with those of his 
acquaintance which are of most worth ; and 
let his travel appear rather in his discourse 
than in his apparel or gesture ; and in his dis 
course let him be rather advised in his an- 
swers than forward to tell stories : and let it 
appear that he doth not change his country- 
manners for those of foreign parts ; but only 
prick in some flowers of that he hath learned 
abroad into the customs of his own country. 



OF EMPIRE. 



It is a miserable state of mind to have few 
things to desire, and many things to fear ; and 
yet that commonly is the case with kings, who, 
being at the highest, want matter of desire, 
which makes their minds more languishing ; 
and have many representations of perils and 
shadows, which make their minds the less 
clear : and this is one reason, also, of that ef- 
fect which the scripture speaketh of, " that 
the king's heart is inscrutable :" for multitude 
of jealousies, and lack of some predominant 
desire, that should marshal and put in order all 
the rest, maketh any man's heart hard to find 
or sound. Hence it comes likewise, that prin- 
ces many times make themselves desires, and 
set their hearts upon toys ; sometimes upon a 
building : sometimes unon the erecting of an 
order sometimes upon the advancing of a 
7 



74 OF EMPIRE. 

person ; sometimes upon obtaining excellence 
in some art, or feat of the hand ; as Nero, for 
playing on the harp ; Domitian, for certainty of 
the hand with the arrow ; Commodus, for 
playing at fence ; Caracalla, for driving chari- 
ots, and the like. This seemeth incredible 
unto those that know not the principle, that 
the mind of man is more cheered and re- 
freshed by profiting in small things than by 
standing at a stay in great. We see also 
that kings that have been fortunate conquerors 
in their first years, it being not possible for 
them to go forward infinitely, but that they 
must have some check or arrest in their for- 
tunes, turn, in their latter years, to be supersti- 
tious and melancholy ; as did Alexander the 
Great, Dioclesian, and in our memory Charles 
the Fifth, and others : for he that is used to 
go forward, and findeth a stop, falleth out of 
his own favour, and is not the thing he was. 

To speak now of the true temper of empire, 
it is a thing rare and hard to keep ; for both 
temper and distemper consist of contraries : 
but it is one thing to mingle contraries, anoth- 
er to interchange them. The answer of Apol- 
lonius to Vespasian is full of excellent instruc- 
tion. Vespasian asked him, what was Nero's 
overthrow. He answered, Nero could touch 
and tune the harp well, but in government 
sometimes he used to wind the pins too high, 
sometimes to let them down too low ; and cer- 
tain it is, that nothing destroy eth authority so 



OP EMPIRE. 75 

much as the unequal and untimely interchange 
of power pressed too far, and relaxed too 
much. 

This is true, that the wisdom of all these 
latter times in princes' affairs, is rather fine 
deliveries, and shiftings of dangers and mis- 
chiefs, when they are near, than solid and 
grounded courses to keep them aloof : but this 
is but to try masteries with fortune ; and let 
men beware how they neglect and suffer mat- 
ter of trouble to be prepared ; for no man can 
forbid the spark, nor tell whence it may come. 
The difficulties in princes' business are many 
and great ; but the greatest difficulty is often 
in their own mind; for k is common with 
princes (saith Tacitus) to will contradictories ; 
" Sunt plerumque regum voluntates vehemen- 
tes, et inter se contrariae;" for it is the sole- 
cism of power to think to command the end, 
and yet not to endure the means. 

Kings have to deal with their neighbours, 
their wives, their children, their prelates or 
clergy, their nobles, their second nobles or gen- 
tlemen, their merchants, their commons, and 
their men of war; and from all these arise 
dangers, if care and circumspection be not 
used. 

First, for their neighbours, there can no gen- 
eral rule be given, (the occasions are so vari- 
able,) save one, which ever holdeth ; which is, 
that princes do keep due sentinel, that none 
of their neighbours do overgrow so (by in- 
crease of territory, by embracing of trade, by 



76 OF EMPIRE. 

approaches, or the like,) as they become more 
able to annoy them than they were ; and this 
is generally the work of standing counsels to 
foresee and to hinder it. During that triumvi- 
rate of kings, king Henry the Eighth, of Eng- 
land, Francis the First, king of France, and 
Charles the Fifth, emperor, there was such a 
watch kept, that none of the three could win 
a palm of ground, but the other two would, 
straightways balance it, either by confedera- 
tion, or, if need were, by war ; and would not 
in any wise take up peace at interest : and the 
like was done by that league (which Guicci- 
ardine saith was the security of Italy) made 
between Ferdinando, king of Naples, Foren- 
zius Medices, and Ludovicus Sforsa, poten- 
tates, the one of Florence, the other of Milan. 
Neither is the opinion of some of the school- 
men to be received, that a war cannot justly 
be made but upon a precedent injury or provo- 
cation ; for there is no question, but a just 
fear of an imminent danger, though there be 
no blow given, is a lawful cause of a war. 

For their wives, there are cruel examples of 
them. Livia is infamed for the poisoning of 
her husband ; Roxalana, Soly man's wife, was 
the destruction of that renowned prince, Sul- 
tan Mustapha, and otherwise troubled his 
house and succession ; Edward the Second of 
England's queen had the principal hand in the 
deposing and murder of her husband. This 
kind of danger is then to be feared chiefly 
when the wives have plots for the raising of 



OF EMPIRE. 77 

their own children, or else that they be advou- 
tresses. 

For their children, the tragedies likewise of 
dangers frcm them have been many ; and gen- 
erally the entering of the fathers into suspicion 
of their children hath been ever unfortunate. 
The destruction of Mustapha (that we named 
before) was so fatal to Soly man's line, as the 
succession of the Turks from Solyman until 
this day is suspected to be untrue, and of 
strange blood ; for that Selymus the Second 
was thought to be supposititious. The de- 
struction of Crispus, a young prince of rare 
towardness, by Constantinus the Great, his 
father, was in like manner fatal to his house, 
for both Constantinus and Constance, his sons, 
died violent deaths ; and Constantius, his oth- 
er son, did little better, who died indeed of 
sickness, but after that Julianus had taken 
arms against him. The destruction of Deme- 
trius, son of Philip the Second of Macedon, 
turned upon the father, who died of repent- 
ance : and many like examples there are, but 
few or none where the fathers had good by 
such distrust, except it wer^ where the sons 
were in open arms against them ; as was Sel 
ymus the First against Eajazet, and the three 
sons of Henry the Second, king of England. 

For their prelates, when they are proud and 
great, there is also danger fiom them ; as it 
was in the times of Anselmus and Thomas 
Beckett, archbishops of Canterbury, who with 
their crosiers did almost try it with the king's 
7* 



78 OF EMPIRE. 

sword ; and yet they had to deal with stout 
and haughty kings, William Rufus, Henry the 
First, and Henry the Second. The danger is 
not from that state, hut where it hath a depen- 
dence of foreign authority ; or where the 
churchmen come in and are elected, not by 
the collation of the king, or particular patrons, 
but by the people. 

For their nobles, to keep them at a distance 
it is not amiss ; but to depress them may 
make a king more absolute, but less safe, and 
less able to perform any thing that he desires. 
I have noted it in my History of king Henry 
the Seventh, of England, who depressed his 
aobility, whereupon it came to pass that his 
jmes were full of difficulties and troubles ; for 
the nobility, though they continued loyal unto 
him, yet did they not cooperate with him in 
his business; so that in effect he was fain to 
do all things himself. 

For their second nobles, there is not much 
danger from them, being a body dispersed : 
they may sometimes discourse high, but that 
doth little hurt; besides, they are a counter- 
poise to the higher nobility, that they grew not 
too potent ; and, lastly, being the most imme- 
diate in authority with the common people, 
they do best temper popular commotions. 

For their merchants, they are " vena porta;" 
and if they flourish not, a kingdom may have 
good limbs, but will have empty veins, and 
nourish little. Taxes and imposts upon them 
Jo seldom good to tne king's revenue, for that 



OF COUNSEL. 79 

which he wins in the hundred, he loseth in 
the shire ; the particular rates being increased, 
but the total bulk of trading rather decreased. 

For their commons, there is little danger 
from them, except it be where they have great 
and potent heads ; or where you meddle with 
the point of religion, or their customs, or 
means of life. 

For their men of war, it is a dangerous 
state where they live and remain in a body, 
and are used to donatives, whereof we see ex- 
amples iit the janizaries, and pretorian bands 
of Rome ; but trainings of men, and arming 
of them in several places, and under several 
commanders, and without donatives, are things 
of defence and no danger. 

Princes are like to heavenly bodies, which 
cause good or evil times ; and which have 
much veneration, but no rest. All piecepts 
concerning kings are in effect comprehended 
in those two remembrances, u memento quod 
es homo ;" and " memento quod es Deus, ci 
vice Dei;" the one bridleth their power, and 
the other their will. 



OF COUNSEL. 



The greatest trust between man and man is 
the trust of giving counsel ; for in other con- 
fidences men commit the parts of life, their 
lands, their goods, their children, their credit, 
some particular affair; but to such as they 



80 OF COUNSEL. 

make their counsellors they commit the whole 
by how miich the more they are obliged to all 
faith and integrity. The wisest princes need 
not think it any diminution to their greatness, 
or derogation to their sufficiency, to rely upon 
counsel. God himself is not without, but 
hath made it one of the great names of his 
blessed Son, "The Counsellor." Solomon 
hath pronounced, that " in counsel is stabil- 
ity." Things will have their first or second 
agitation : if they be not tossed upon the argu- 
ments of counsel, they will be tosse^ upon the 
waves of fortune, and be full of inconstancy, 
doing and undoing, like the reeling of a drunk- 
en man. Solomon's son found the force of 
counsel, as his father saw the necessity of it : 
for the beloved kingdom of God was first rent 
and broken by ill counsel ; upon which coun- 
sel there are set for our instruction the two 
marks whereby bad counsel is for ever best 
discerned, that it was young counsel for the 
persons, and violent counsel for the matter. 

The ancient times do set forth in figure both 
the incorporation and inseparable conjunction 
of counsel with kings, and the wise and poli- 
tic use of counsel by kings : the one, in that 
they say Jupiter did marry Metis, which sig- 
nified! counsel : whereby they intend that 
sovereignty is married to counsel : the othei 
in that which followeth, which was thus : they 
say, after Jupiter was married to Metis, she 
conceived by him and was with child, but Ju- 
piter suffered her not to stay till she brought 



OF COUNSEL. 81 

forth, but eat her no ; whereby he became 
himself with child, and was delivered of Pal- 
las armed out of his head. Which monstrous 
fable containeth a secret of empire, how kings 
are to make use of their council of state : that 
first, they ought to refer matters unto them, 
which is the first begetting of impregnation : 
but when they are elaborate, moulded, and 
shaped in the womb of their council, and 
grow ripe and ready to be brought forth, that 
then they suffer not their council to go througli 
with the resolution and direction, as if it de- 
pended on them ; but take the matter back 
into their own hands, and make it appear to 
the world, that the decrees and final directions 
(which, because they come forth with pru- 
dence and power, are resembled to Pallas 
armed) proceeded from themselves ; and not 
only from their authority, but (the more to add 
reputation to themselves ^ from their head 
and device. 

Let us now speak of the inconveniences of 
counsel, and of the remedies. The inconve- 
niences that have been noted in calling and 
using counsel, are three : first, the revealing 
of affairs, whereby they become less secret ; 
secondly, the weakening of the authority of 
princes, as if they were less of themselves ; 
thirdly, the danger of being unfaithfully coun- 
selled, and more for the good of them that 
counsel than of him that is counselled ; for 
which inconveniences, the doctrine of Italy, and 
praf tice of France in some kings' times, hath 



82 OF COUNSEL. 

introduced cabinet councils ; a remedy wore 
than the disease. 

As to secrecy, princes are not bound to 
communicate all matters with all counsellors, 
but may extract and select ; neither is it ne- 
cessary, that he that consulteth what he should 
do should declare what he will do; but let 
princes beware that the unsecreting of their 
affairs comes not from themselves : and, as for 
cabinet councils, it may be their motto, " ple- 
nus rimarum sum :" one futile person, that 
maketh it his glory to tell, will do more hurt 
than many that know it their duty to conceal. 
It is true there be some affairs which require 
extreme secrecy, which will hardly go beyond 
one or two persons beside the king : neither 
are those counsels unprosperous ; fbr, besides 
the secrecy, they commonly go on constantly 
in one spirit of direction without distraction : 
but then it must be a prudent king, such as is 
able to grind with a hand-mill ; and those in- 
ward counsellors had need also be wise men, 
and especially true and trusty to the king's 
ends ; as it was with king Henry the Seventh 
of England, who in his greatest business im- 
parted himself to none, except it were to Mor- 
ton and Fox. 

For weakness of authority the fable show- 
eth the remedy : nay, the majesty of kings is 
rather exalted than diminished when they are 
in the chair of council : neither was there ev- 
er prince bereaved of his dependencies by his 
council except where there hath been either 



OF COUNSEL. 83 

an overgreatness in one counsellor, or an over- 
strict combination in divers, which are things 
soon found and holpen. 

For the last inconvenience, that men will 
counsel with an eye to themselves ; certainly, 
" non inveniet fidem super terrain," is meant 
of the nature of times, and not of all particu- 
lar persons. There be that are in nature faith- 
ful and sincere, and plain and direct, not crafty 
and involved : let ponces, above all, draw to 
themselves such natures. Besides, counsel- 
lors are not commonly so united, but that one 
counsellor keepeth sentinel over another ; so 
that if any counsel out of faction or private 
ends, it commonly comes to the king's ear :" 
but the best remedy is, if princes know their 
counsellors, as well as their counsellors know 
them, 

" Principis est virtus maxima nosse suoe." 

And, on the other side, counsellors should not 
be too speculative into their sovereign's per- 
son. The true composition of a counsellor is, 
rather to be skilful in his master's business 
than in his nature ; for then he is like to ad- 
vise him, and not to feed his humour. It is 
of singular use to' princes if they take the 
opinions of their council" both separately and 
together ; for private opinion, is more free, but 
opinion before others is more reverend. In 
private, men are more bold in their own hu- 
mours ; and in consort, men are more obnox- 
ious to others' humours ; therefore it is good to 



*\ OP COUNSEL. 

take both, and of the inferior sort rather in 
private, to preserve freedom ; of the greater, 
rather in consort, to preserve respect. It is in 
vain for princes to take counsel concerning 
matters, if they take no counsel likewise con- 
cerning persons ; for all matters are as dead 
images; and the life of the execution of af- 
fairs resteth in the good choice of persons : 
neither is it enough to consult concerning 
persons, u secundum genera," as in an idea of 
mathematical description, what the kind and 
character of the person should be ; for the 
greatest errors are committed, and the most 
judgment is shown, in the choice of individu- 
als. It was truly said, " optimi consiliarii 
mortui : v " books will speak plain when coun- 
sellors blanch ;" therefore it is good to be con- 
versant in them, especially the books of such 
as themselves have been actors upon the 
stage. 

The councils at this day in most places are 
but familiar meetings, where matters are rath- 
er talked on than debated ; and they run too 
swift to the order or act of council. It were 
better that in causes of weight the matter 
were propounded one day, and not spoken to 
till next day; "in nocte consilium :" so was 
it done in the commission of union between 
England and Scotland, which was a grave and 
orderly assembly. I commend set days for 
petitions; for both it gives the suitors more 
certainty for their attendance, and it frees 
the meetings for matters of estate, that 4- 



OF COUNSEL. S# 

may " hoc agere." In choice of committees 
for ripening business for the council, it is bet- 
ter to choose indifferent persons than to make 
an indifferency by putting in those that are 
strong on both sides. I commend, also, stand- 
ing commissions ; as for trade, for treasure, for 
war, for suits, for some provinces ; for where 
there be divers particular councils, and but one 
council of estate, (as it is in Spain,) they are, 
in effect, no more than standing commissions, 
save that they have greater authority. Let 
such as are to inform councils out of their par- 
ticular professions, (as lawyers, seamen, mint- 
men, and the like,) be first heard before com- 
mittees ; and then, as occasion serves, before 
the council ; and let them not come in multi- 
tudes, or in a tribunitious manner ; for that is 
to clamour councils, not to inform them. A 
long table and a square table, or seats about 
the walls, seem things of form, but are things 
of substance ; for at a long table, a few at the 
upper end, in effect, sway all the business ; 
but in the other form there is more use of the 
counsellors' opinions that sit lower. A king, 
when he presides in council, let him beware 
how he opens his own inclination too much in 
that which he propoundeth ; for else coun- 
sellors will but take the wind of him, and, in- 
stead of giving free counsel, will sing him a 
song of " placebo." 
8 



66 OF DELAYS. 



OF DELAYS. 

Fortune is like the market, where, many 
times, if you can stay a little, the price will 
fall; and, again, it is sometimes like Sibylla's 
offer, which at first offeieth the commodity at 
full, then consumeth part and part, and. still 
holdeth up the price ; for occasion (as it is in 
the common verse) turneth a bald noddle after 
she hath presented her locks in front, and no 
hold taken ; or, at least, turneth the handle of 
the bottle first to be received, and after the 
belly, which is hard to clasp. There is sure- 
ly no greater wisdom than well to time the 
beginnings and onsets of things. Dangers 
are no more light, if they once seem light ; 
and more dangers have deceived men than 
forced them : nay, it were better to meet some 
dangers half way, though they come nothing 
near, than to keep too long a watch upon their 
approaches ; for if a man watch too long, it is 
odds he will fall asleep. On the other side, 
to be deceived with too long shadows, (as some 
have been when the moon was low, and shone 
on their enemies' back,) and so to shoot off 
before the time ; or to teach dangers to come 
on by over-early buckling towards them, is an- 
other extreme. The ripeness or unripeness of 
the occasion (as we said) must ever be well 
weighed ; and generally it is good to commit 
the beginnings of all great actions to Argos 
with his hundred eyes, and the ends to Bria- 



OF CUNNING. 87 

reus with his hundred hands ; first to watch, 
and then to speed ; for the helmet of Pluto, 
-vhich maketh the politic man go invisible, is 
secrecy in the council, and celerity in the exe- 
cution ; for when things are once come to the 
execution, there is no secrecy comoarable to 
celerity; like the motion of a bullet in the 
air, which fiieth so swift as it outruns the eye. 



OF CUNNING. 



Wk take cunning for a sinister or crooktd 
wisdom ; and certainly there is a great difference 
between a cunning man and a wise man, not 
only in point of honesty, but in point of abil- 
ity. There be that can pack the cards, and 
yet cannot play well ; so there are some that 
are good in canvasses and factions, that are 
otherwise weak men. Again, it is one thing 
to understand persons, and another thing to 
understand matters ; for many are perfect in 
men's humours, that are not greatly capable of 
the real part of business, which is the consti- 
tution of one that hath studied men more than 
books. Such men are fitter for practice than 
for counsel, and they are good but in their own 
alley : turn them to new men, and they have 
lost their aim : so as the old rule, to know a 
fool from a wise man, " Mitte ambos nudos ad 
ignotos, et videbis," doth scarce hold for them; 
am 1 , because these cunning men are like hab- 



88 OP CUNNING. 

erdashers of small wares, it is not amiss to set 
forth their shop. 

It is a point of cunning to wait upon him 
with whom you speak with your eye, as the 
Jesuits give it in precept ; for there be many 
wise men that have secret hearts and transpa- 
rent countenances: yet this would be done 
with a demure abasing of your eye sometimes, 
as the Jesuits also do use. 

Another is, that when you have any thing 
to obtain of present despatch, you entertain 
and amuse the party with whom you deal with 
some other discourse, that he be not too much 
awake to make objections. I knew a coun- 
sellor and secretary, that never came to queen 
Elizabeth of England with bills to sign, but 
he would always first put her into some dis- 
course of state, that she might the less mind 
the bills. 

The like surprise may be made by moving 
things when the party is in haste, and cannot 
stay to consider advisedly of that is moved. 

If a man would cross a business that he 
doubts some other would handsomely and ef- 
fectually move, let him pretend to wish it 
well, and move it himself, in such sort as may 
soil it. 

The breaking o3f in the midst of that one 
was about to say, as if he took himself up, 
breeds a greater appetite in him, with whom 
you confer, to know more. 

And because it works better when any thing 
seemeth to be gotten from you by question, 



OF CUNNING. 89 

than if you offer it of yourself, you may lay a 
bait for a question, by showing anotner visage 
and countenance than you are wont; to the 
end, to give occasion for the party to ask what 
the matter is of the change, as Nehemiah did, 
" And I had not before that time been sad be- 
fore the king." 

In things that are tender and unpleasing, it 
is good to break the ice by some whose words 
are of less weight, and to reserve the more 
weighty voice to come in as by chance, so 
that he may be asked the question upon the 
other's speech; as Narcissus did, in relating 
to Claudius the marriage of Messalina and 
Silius. 

In things that a man would not be seen in 
himself, it is a point of cunning to borrow 
the name of the world ; as to say, " The 
world says," or, " There is a speech abroad." 

I knew one that, when he wrote a letter, 
he would put that which was most material 
in the postscript, as if it had been a by mat- 
ter. 

I knew another that, when he came to have 
speech, he would pass over that that he in- 
tended most; and go forth and come back 
again, and speak of it as a thing he had al- 
most forgot. 

Some procure themselves to be surprised at 
such times as it is like the party that they 
work upon will suddenly come upon them, 
and be found with a letter in their hand, or 
doing somewhat which they are not accustom- 
8 * 



90 OF CUNNING. 

ed, to the end they may be opposed of those 
things which of themselves they are desirous 
to utter. 

It is a point of cunning, to let fall those 
words in a man's own name, which he would 
have another man learn and use, and there- 
upon take advantage. I knew two that were 
competitors for the secretary's place, in queen 
Elizabeth's time, and yet kept good quarter 
between themselves, and would confer one 
with another upon the business ; and the one 
of them said, that to be a secretary in the de- 
clination of a monarchy was a ticklish thing, 
and that he did not affect it ; the other straight 
caught up those words, and discoursed with 
divers of his friends, that he had no reason to 
desire to be secretary in the declining of a mon- 
archy. The first man took hold of it, and 
found means it was told the queen ; who, 
hearing of a declination of monarchy, took it 
so ill, as she would never after hear of the 
other's suit. 

There is a cunning, which we in England 
call "The turning of the cat in the pan;" 
which is, when that which a man says to an- 
other, he lays it as if another had said it 
to him ; and, to say truth, it is not easy when 
such a matter passed between two, to make it 
appear from which of them it first moved and 
began. 

It is a way that some men have, to glance 
and dart at others by justifying themselves by 
negatives; as to say, "This I do not;" as 



OF CUNNING. 91 

Tigellinus did towards Burrhus, " se non di- 
versas spes, sed incolumitatem imperatoris 
simpliciter spectare." 

Some have in readiness so many tales and 
stories, as there is nothing they would insinuate, 
but they can wrap it into a tale ; which serv- 
eth both to keep themselves more on guard, 
and to make others carry it with more pleas- 
ure. 

It is a good point of cunning for a man to 
shape the answer he would have in his own 
words and propositions ; for it makes the other 
party stick the less. 

It is strange how long; some men will lie in 
wait to speak somewhat they desire to say ; 
and how far about they will fetch, and how 
many other matters they will beat over, to come 
near it : it is a thing of great patience, but yet 
of much use. 

A sudden, bold, and unexpected question 
doth many times surprise a man, and lay him 
open. Like to him, that, having changed his 
name, and walking in Paul's, another sud- 
denly came behind him, and called him by his 
true name, whereat straightways he looked 
back. 

But these small wares and petty points of 
cunning are infinite, and it were a good deed 
to make a list of them ; for that nothing doth 
more hurt in a state than that cunning men 
pass for wise. 

But certainly some there are that know the 
resorts and falls of business, that cannot sink 



92 OP WISDOM FOR A MAN'S SELF. 

into the main of it ; like a house that hath 
convenient stairs and entries, but never a fail 
room : therefore you shall see them find out 
pretty looses in the conclusion, but are no 
ways able to examine or debate matters ; and 
yet commonly they take advantage of their in- 
ability, and would be thought wits of direc- 
tion. Some build rather upon the abusing of 
others, and (as we now say) putting tricks 
upon them, than upon the soundness of their 
own proceedings : but Solomon saith, " Pru- 
dens ddvertit ad gressus suos : stultus divertit 
ad dolos." 



OF WISDOM FOR A MAN'S SELF. 

An ant is a wise creature for itself, but it is 
a shrewd thing in an orchard or garden ; and 
certainly men that are great lovers of them- 
selves waste the public. Divide with reason 
between self-love and society ; and be so true 
to thyself, as thou be not false to others, espe- 
cially to thy king and country. It is a poor 
centre of a man's actions, himself. It is right 
earth ; for that only stands fast upon his own 
centre ; whereas, all things that have affinity 
with the heavens meve upon the centre of an- 
other, which they benefit. The referring of 
all to a man's self is more tolerable in a sove- 
reign prince, because themselves are not only 
themselves, but their good and evil is at the 
peril of the public fortune : but it is a despe- 



OF WISDOM FOR A MAN'S SELF. 93 

rate evil in a servant to a prince, or a citizen 
in a republic ; for whatsoever affairs pass such 
a man's hands, he crooketh them to his own 
ends ; which must needs be often eccentric tG 
the ends of his master or state : therefore let 
princes or states choose such servants as have 
not this mark ; except they mean their service 
should be made but the accessary. That 
which maketh the effect more pernicious is, 
that all proportion is lest ; it were dispropor- 
tion enough for the servant's good to be pre- 
ferred before the master's; but yet it is a 
greater extreme, when a little good of the 
servant shall carry things against the great 
good of the master's : and yet that is the case 
of bad officers, treasurers, ambassadors, gener- 
als, and other false and corrupt servants ; which 
set a bias upon their bowl, of their own petty 
ends and envies, to the overthrow of their 
master's great and important affairs : and, for 
the most part, the good such servants receive 
is after the model of their own fortune ; but 
the hurt they sell for that good is after the 
model of their master's fortune : and certainly 
it is the nature of extreme self-lovers, as they 
will set a house on fire, and it were but to 
roast their eggs ; and yet these men many 
times hold credit with their masters, because 
their study is but to please them and profit 
themselves; and for either respect they will 
abandon the good of their affairs. 

Wisdom for a man's self is, in many bran- 
ches thereof a depraved thing : it is die wis- 



94 OF INNOVATIONS. 

doni ot rats, that will be sure to leave a house 
sometime before it fall : it is the wisdom of 
the fox, that thrusts out the badger who dig- 
ged and made room for him : it is the wis- 
dom of crocodiles, that shed tears when they 
would devour. But that which is specially to 
be noted is, that those which (as Cicero says 
of Pompey) are " sui amante, sine rivali,^ 
are many times unfortunate ; and whereas they 
have all their time sacrificed to themselves, 
they become in the end themselves sacrifices 
to the inconstancy of fortune, whose wings they 
thought by their self-wisdom to have pinioned. 



OF INNOVATIONS. 

As the births of living creatures at first are 
ill shapen, so are all innovations, which are 
the births of time; yet notwithstanding, as 
those that lirst bring honour into their family 
are commonly more worthy than most that 
succeed, so the first precedent (if it be good) 
is seldom attained by imitation ; for ill to man's 
nature, as it stands perverted, hath a natural 
motion strongest in continuance ; but good, as 
a forced motion, strongest at first. Surely ev- 
ery medicine is an innovation, and he that will 
not apply new remedies must expect new 
evils; for time is the greatest innovator; and 
if time of course alter things to the worse, and 
wisdom and counsel shall not alter them to the 
better, what shall be the end ? It is true, that 



OF INNOVATIONS. 95 

what is settled by custom, though it be not 
good, yet at least it is fit; and those things 
which have long gone together are, as it were, 
confederate within themselves ; whereas new 
things piece not so well ; but, though they 
help by their utility, yet they trouble by their 
inconformity : besides, they are like strangers, 
more admired, and less favoured. All this is 
true, if time stood still ; which, contrariwise 
moveth so round, that a froward retention oi 
custom is as turbulent a thing as an innova- 
tion ; and they that reverence too much old 
times are but a scorn to the new. It- were 
good, therefore, that men, in their innovations, 
would follow the example of time itself, which 
indeed innovateth greatly, but quietly, and by 
degrees scarce to be perceived ; for otherwise, 
whatsoever is new is unlooked for; and ever 
it mends some, and pairs others ; and he that 
is holpen takes it for a fortune, and thanks the 
tinie ; and he that is hurt, for a wrong, and 
imputeth it to the author. It is good also not 
to try experiments in states, except the neces- 
sity be urgent, or the utility evident ; and well 
to beware that it be the reformation that draw- 
eth on the change, and not the desire of 
change that pretendeth the reformation : and, 
lastly, that the novelty, though it be not re- 
jected, yet be held for a suspect ; and, as the 
scripture saith, u That we make a stand upon 
the ancient way, and then look about us, and 
discover what is the straight and right way, 
nri 1 ] so to walV in it.* 1 



96 OF DESPATCH. 



OF DESPATCH. 



Affected despatch is one of the most dan- 
gerous things to business that can be : it is 
like that which the physicians call prediges- 
tion, or hasty digestion ; which is sure to fill 
the body full of crudities, and secret seeds of 
diseases : therefore measure not despatch by 
the time of sitting, but by the advancement of 
the business : and as, in races, it is not the large 
stride, or high lift, that makes the speed ; so, 
in business, the keeping close to the matter, 
and not taking of it too much at once, procur- 
eth despatch. It is the care of some only to 
come off speedily for the time, or to contrive 
some false periods of business, because they 
may seem men of despatch : but it is one 
thing to abbreviate by contracting, another by 
cutting off; and business so handled at several 
sittings, or meetings, goeth commonly back- 
ward and forward in an unsteady manner. I 
knew a wise man, that had it for a by-word, 
when he saw men hasten to a conclusion, 
" Stay a little, that we may make an end the 
sooner." 

On the other side, true despatch is a rich 
thing ; for time is the measure of businesses 
money is of wares ; and business is bought at 
a dear hand where there is small despatch. 
The Spartans and Spaniards have been noted 
to fee of small despatch : " Mi venga la muerte 
de Spagna ;" — " Let my death come from 



OP DESPATCH. 97 

Spain," for then it will be sure to be long in 
coming. 

Give good hearing to those that give the 
first information in business, and rather direct 
them in the beginning than interrupt them in 
tbe continuance of their speeches ; for he that 
is put out of his own order will go forward 
and backward, and be more tedious while he 
waits upon his memory, than he could have 
been if he had gone on in his own course ; 
but sometimes it is seen that the moderator is 
more troublesome than the actor. 

Iterations are commonly loss of time ; but 
there is no such gain of time as to iterate of- 
ten the state of the question ; for it chaseth 
away many a frivolous speech as it is coming 
forth. Long and curious speeches are as fit 
for despatch as a robe, or mantle, with a long 
train, is for a race. Prefaces, and passages, 
and excusations, and other speeches of refer- 
ence to the person, are great wastes of time ; 
and, though they seem to proceed of modesty, 
they are bravery. Yet beware of being too 
material when there is any impediment, or ob- 
struction, in men's wills ; for pre-occupation 
of mind ever requireth preface of speech, like 
a fomentation to make the unguent enter. 

Above all things, order and distribution, and 
singling out of parts, is the life of despatch ; 
so as the distribution be not too subtile : for 
he that doth not divide will never enter well 
into business ; and he that divideth too much 
will never come out of it clearly. To ^hoost 
Q 



98 OP SEEMING WISE. 

time is to save time ; and an unseasonable mo- 
tion is but beating the ah. There be three 
parts of business ; the preparation ; the debate 
or examination ; and the perfection ; whereof, 
if you look for despatch, let the middle only 
be the work of many, and the first and last 
the work of few. The proceeding upon some- 
what conceived in writing doth, for the most 
part, facilitate despatch : for though it should 
be wholly rejected, yet that negative is more 
pregnant of direction than an indefinite, as 
ashes are more generative than dust. 



OF SEEMING WISE. 

It hath been an opinion, that the French 
are wiser than they seem, and the Spaniards 
seem wiser than they are : but, howsoever it 
be between nations, certainly it is so between 
man and man ; for, as the apostle saith of god- 
liness, " having a show of godliness, but de- 
nying the power thereof;" so certainly there 
are in points of wisdom and sufficiency, that 
do nothing or little very solemnly : " magno 
conatu nugas." It is a ridiculous thing, and 
fit for a satire to persons of judgment, to see 
what shifts these formalists have, and what 
prospectives to make superfices to seem body 
that hath depth and bulk. Some are so close 
and reserved, as they will not show their 
wares but by a dark light, and seem always to 



OF SEEMING WISE. 99 

keep back somewhat ; and, when they know 
within themselves they speak of that they do 
not well know, would nevertheless seem to oth- 
ers to know of that which they may not well 
speak. Some help themselves with counte- 
nance and gesture, and are wise by signs ; as 
Cicero saith of Piso, that when he answered 
him he fetched one of his brows up to his fore- 
head, and bent the other down to his chin ; 
" respondes, altero ad fruntem sublato, altero ad 
mentum depresso supercilio, crudelitatem tibi 
non placere." Some think to bear it by speak- 
ing a great; word, and being peremptory ; and go 
on, and take by admittance that which they 
cannot make good. Some, whatsoever is be- 
yond their reach, will seem to despise, or make 
light of it, as impertinent or curious : and so 
would have their ignorance seem judgment. 
Some are never without a difference, and com- 
monly, by amusing men with a subtilty, blanch 
the matter ; of whom A. Gellius saith, " ho- 
minem delirium, qui verborum, minutirs rerum 
frangit pondera." Of which kind also Plato, 
in his Protagoras, bringeth in Prodicus in 
scorn, and maketh him make a speech that 
consisteth of distinctions from the beginning 
to the end. Generally such men, in all delib- 
erations, find ease to be of the negative side, 
and affect a credit to object and foretell difficul- 
ties ; for when propositions are denied, there 
is an end of them ; but if they be allowed, it 
requireth a new work ; which false point of 
wisdom is the bane of business. To conclude, 



100 OF FRIENDSHIP. 

there is no decaying merchant, or inward beg- 
gar, hath so many tricks to uphold the Gredit 
of their wealth, as these empty persons have 
to maintain the credit of their sufficiency. 
Seeming wise men may make shift to get 
opinion ; but let no man choose them for em- 
ployment ; for, certainly, you were better take 
for business a man somewhat surd than over- 
formal. 



OF FRIENDSHIP. 

It had been hard for him that spake it to 
have put more truth and untruth together in 
few words than in that speech, " Whosoever 
is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast 
or a god:" for it is most true, that a natural 
and secret hatred and aversion towards society 
in any man hath somewhat of the savage 
beast; but it is most untrue, that it should 
have any character at all of the divine nature, 
except it proceed, not out of a pleasure in sol- 
itude, but out of a love and desire to sequester 
a man's self for a higher conversation : such 
as is found to have been falsely and feignedly 
in some of the heathens ; as Epimenides, the 
Candian ; Numa, the Roman ; Empedocles, 
the Sicilian ; and Apollonius of Tyana ; and 
truly and really in divers of the ancient her- 
mits and holy fathers of the church. But lit- 
tle do men perceive what solitude is, and how 
far it extendeth ; for a crowd is not company, 



OP FRIENDSHIP. 101 

and faces are but a gallery of pictures, and 
talk but a tinkling cymbal where there is no 
love. The Latin adage meeteth with it a 
little; " magna civitas, magna solitudo;" be- 
cause in a great town friends are scattered, so 
that there is not that fellowship, for the most 
part, which is in less neighbourhoods : but we 
may go farther, and affirm most truly, that it is 
a mere and miserable solitude to want true 
friends, without which the world is but a wil- 
derness ; and even in this scene also of soli- 
tude, whosoever in the frame of his nature and 
affections is unfit for friendship, he taketh it 
of the beast, and not from humanity. 

A principal fruit of friendship is the ease 
and discharge of the fulness of the heart, 
which passions of all kinds do cause and in- 
duce. We know diseases of stoppings and 
suffocations are the most dangerous in the 
body ; and it is not much otherwise ia the 
mind , you may take sarza to open the liver,' 
steel to open the spleen, flower of sulphur for 
the lungs, castoreum for the brain ; but no re- 
ceipt openeth the heart but a true friend, to 
whom you may impart griefs, joys, fears, hopes, 
suspicion^ ;ounsels, and whatsoever lieth upon 
the heart to oppress it, in a kind of civil shrift 
or confession. 

It is a strange thing to observe how high a 
rate g?eat kings and monarchs do set upon 
this fruit of friendship whereof we speak': so 
great, as they purchase it many times at the 
hazard of their own safety and greatness : for 



102 OF FRIENDSHIP. 

princes, in regard of the distance of their for- 
tune from that of their subjects and servants, 
cannot gather this fruit except (to make them- 
selves capable thereof) they raise some per- 
sons to be as it were companions, and almost 
equals to themselves, which many times sort- 
eth to inconvenience. The modern languages 
give unto such persons the name of favourites, 
or privadoes, as if it were matter of grace, or 
conversation; but the Roman name attaineth 
the true use and cause thereof, naming them 
" participes curarum ;" for it is that which 
tieth the knot : and we see plainly that this 
hath been done, not by weak and passionate 
princes only, but by the wisest and most poli- 
tic that ever reigned, who have oftentimes 
joined to themselves some of their servants, 
whom both themselves have called friends, 
and allowed others likewise to call them in the 
same«nanner, using the word which is receiv- 
ed between private men. 

L. Sylla, when he commanded Rome, raised 
Pompey (after surnamed the Great) to that 
height, that Pompey vaunted himself for Syl- 
la's overmatch ; for, when he had carried the 
consulship for a friend of his, against the pur- 
suit of Sylla, and that Sylla did a little resent 
thereat, and began to speak great, Pompey 
turned upon him again, and in effect bade him 
be quiet ; for that more men adored the sun 
rising than the sun setting. With Julius Cae- 
sar, Decimus Brutus had obtained that interest, 
ac he set him down in his testament for heir 



OF FRIENDSHIP 103 

in remainder after his nephew; and this 
was the man that had power with him to 
draw him forth to his death : for when Cae- 
sar would have discharged the senate, in 
regard of some ill presages, and specially 
a dream of Calpurnia, this man lifted him 
gently by the arm out of his chair, telling him 
he hoped he would not dismiss tho senate tiJl 
his wife had dreamed a better dream ; and it 
seemed his favour was so great as Anto^ius, in 
a letter which is recited verbatim in one of 
Cicero's Philippics, called him " venefica," — 
" witch ; M as if he had enchanted Caesar. 
Augustus raised Agrippa (though of mean 
birth) to that height, as, when he consulted 
with Maecenas about the marriage of his 
daughter Julia, Maecenas took the liberty to 
tell him, that he must either marry his daugh- 
ter to x\grippa, or take away his life : there 
was no third way, he had made him so great. 
With Tiberius Caesar, Sejanus had ascended to 
that height, as they two were termed and reck- 
oned as a pair of friends. Tiberius, in a let- 
ter to him, saith, u haec pro amicitia nostra non 
occultavi;" and the whole senate dedicated 
an altar to Friendship, as to a goddess, in re- 
spect of the great dearness of friendship be- 
tween them two. The like, or more, was be- 
tween Septimius Severus and Plautianus ; for 
he forced his eldest son to marry the daughter 
of Plautianus, and would often maintain Plau- 
tianus in doing affronts to his son : and did 
write, also, in a letter to the senate, by these 



104 OF FRIENDSHIP. 

words : " I love the man so well as I wish 
he may overlive me." Now, if these princes 
had been as a Trajan, or a Marcus Aurelius, a 
man might have thought that this had proceed- 
ed of an abundant goodness of nature ; but 
being men so wise, of such strength and se- 
verity of mind, and so extreme lovers of them- 
selves, as all these were, it proveth, most 
plainly, that they found their ow:. felicity 
(though as great as ever happened to mortal 
men) but as an halfpiece, except they might 
have a friend to make it entire ; and yet, 
which is more, they were princes that had 
wives, sons, nephews : yet all these could not 
supply the comfort of friendship. 

It is not to be forgotten what Comineus ob- 
serveth of his first master, Duke Charles the 
Hardy, namely, that he would communicate 
his secrets with none ; and, least of all, those 
secrets which troubled him most. Whereupon 
he goeth on, and saith, that, towards his latter 
time, that closeness did impair and a little 
perish his understanding. Surely Comineus 
might have made the same judgment also, it 
it had pleased him, of his second master, 
Lewis the Eleventh^ whose closeness was in- 
deed his tormentor. The parable of Pythag- 
oras is dark, but true, "cor ne edito," — 
" eat not the heart." Certainly, if a man 
would give it a hard phrase, those that want 
friends to open themselves unto are cannibals 
of their cwn hearts ; but one thing is most 
admirable, (wherewith I will conclude this 



OF FRIENDSHIP. 105 

first fruit of friendship,) which is, that this 
communicating of a man's self to his friend 
works to contrary effects, for it redoubleth 
joys and cutteth griefs in halves ; for there is 
no man that imparteth his joys to his friend, 
but he joyeth the more ; and no man that im- 
parteth his griefs to his friend, but he grieve th 
the less. So that it is, in truth, of operation 
upon a man's mind, of like virtue as the al- 
chymists use to attribute to their stone for 
man's body, that it worketh all contrary effects, 
bat still to the good and benefit of nature : 
but yet, without praying in aid of alchymists, 
there is a manifest image of this in the ordi- 
nary course of nature ; for, in bodies, union 
strengtheneth and cherisheth any natural ac- 
tion ; and, on the other side, weakeneth and 
dulleth any violent impression ; and even so is 
it of minds. 

The second fruit of friendship is healthful 
and sovereign fcr the understanding, as the 
first is for the affections ; for friendship maketh 
indeed a fair day in the affections from st^rm 
and tempests, but it maketh daylight in the 
understanding, out of darkness and confusion 
of thoughts : neither is this to be understood 
only of faithful counsel, which a man receiveth 
from his friend ; but before you come to that, 
certain it is, that whosoever hath his mind 
fraught with many thoughts, his wits and un- 
derstanding do clarify and break up, in the 
communicating and discoursing with another; 
he tosseth his thoughts more easily ; he mar- 



106 OF FRIENDSHIP. 

shalleth them more orderly ; he seeth how 
they look when they are turned into words ; 
finally, he waxeth wiser than himself; and 
that more by an hour's discourse than by a 
day's meditation. It was well said by The- 
mistocles to the king of Persia, " that speech 
was like cloth of Arras, opened and put 
abroad :" whereby the imagery doth appear in 
figure j whereas in thoughts they lie but as in 
packs. Neither is this second fruit of friend- 
ship, in opening the understanding, restrained 
only to such friends as are able to give a man 
counsel, (they indeed are best,) but even 
without that a man learneth of himself, and 
bringeth his own thoughts to light, and whet- 
teth his wits as against a stone, which itself 
cuts not. In a word, a man were better relate 
himself to a statue or picture than to suffer his 
thoughts to pass in smother. 

Add, now, to make this second fruit of 
friendship complete, that other point which 
lieth more open, and falleth within vulgar 
observation : which is faithful counsel from a 
friend. Heraclitus saith well in one of his 
enigmas, "Dry light is ever the best," and 
certain it is, that the light that a man receiveth 
by counsel from another is drier and purer 
than that which cometh from his own under- 
standing and judgment ; which is ever infused 
and drenched in his affections and customs. 
So as there is as much difference between the 
counsel that a friend giveth, and that a man 
giveth himself, as there is between the coun- 



OF FRIENDSHIP. 107 

sel of a friend and of a flatterer; lor there is 
no such flatterer as is a man's self, and there 
is no such remedy against flattery or a man's 
self as the liberty of a friend. Counsel is of 
two sorts ; the one concerning manners, the 
other concerning business; for the first the 
best preservative to keep the mind in health 
is the faithful admonition of a friend. The 
calling of a man's self to a strict account is a 
medicine sometimes too piercing and corro- 
sive ; reading good books of morality is a 
little _ q ^t and dead ; observing our faults in 
others is sometimes improper for our case ; 
but Jie best receipt (best I say to work and 
best to take) is the admonition of a friend. 
It is a strange thing to behold what gross er- 
rors and extreme absurdities many ^ especially 
of the greater sort) do commit for want of 
a friend to tell them of them, to the great 
damage both of their fame and fortune : for, 
as St. James saith, they are as men " that look 
sometimes into a glass, and presently forgot 
their own shape and favour ;" as for business, 
a man may think, if he will, that two eyes see 
no more than one ; or, that a gamester seeth 
always more than a looker-on ; or, that a man 
in anger is as wise as he that hath said over 
the four-and-twenty letters ; or, that a musket 
may be shot off* as well upon the arm as upon 
a rest ; and such other fond and high imagi- 
nations, to think himself all in all ■ but. when 
all Is done, the help of good counsel is that 
which settleth busiuess straight; and if any 



108 OF FRIENDSHIP. 

man think that he will take counsel, but it 
shall be by pieces ; asking counsel in one bu- 
siness of one man, and in another business of 
another man ; it is as well, (that is to say, bet- 
ter, perhaps, than if he asked none at all,) but 
he runneth two dangers ; one, that he shall 
not be faithfully counselled ; for it is a rare 
thing, except it be from a perfect and entire 
friend, to have counsel given, but such as shall 
be bowed and crooked to some ends which he 
hath that giveth it: the other, that he shall 
have counsel given, hurtful and unsafe, (though 
with good meaning,) and mixed partly of mis- 
chief, and partly of remedy ; even as if you 
would call a physician, that is thought good 
hr the cure of the disease you complain of, 
but is unacquainted with your body ; and, 
therefore, may put you in a way for present 
cure, but overthroweth your health in some 
other kind, and so cure the disease, and kill 
the patient : but a friend, that is w T holly ac- 
quainted with a man's estate, will beware, by 
furthering any present business, how he dash- 
eth upon other inconvenience ; and, therefore, 
rest not upon scattered counsels ; for they will 
rather distract and mislead than settle and 
direct. 

After these two noble fruits of friendship 
(peace in the affections and support of the judg- 
ment) followeth the last fruit, which is, like 
the pomegranate, full of many kernels ; I mean, 
aid and bearing a part in all actions and occa- 
sions. Here the best way to represent to life 



OF FRIENDSHIP. 109 

the manifold use of friendship, is to cast and 
see how many things there are which a man 
cannot do himself; and then it will appear 
that it was a sparing speech of the ancients to 
say, "that a friend is another himself; for 
that a friend is far more than himself." Men 
have their time, and die many time-s in desire 
of some things which they principally take to 
heart ; the bestowing of a child, the finishing 
of a work, or the like. If a man have a true 
friend, he may rest almost secure that the care 
of those things will continue after him ; so 
that a man hath, as it were, two lives in his 
desires. A man hath a body, and that body 
is confined to a place ; but where friendship 
is, all offices of life are, as it were, granted to 
him and his deputy ; for he may exercise them 
ty his friend. How many things are there 
which a man cannot, with any face or comeli- 
ness, say or do himself! A man can scarce 
allege his own merits with modesty, much less 
extol them ; a man cannot sometimes brook 
to supplicate, or beg, and a number of the like : 
but all these things are graceful in a friend's 
mouth, which are blushing in a man's own. 
So again, a man's person hath many proper 
relations which he cannot put off. A man 
cannot speak to his son but as a father ; to his 
wife but as a husband; to his enemy but upon 
terms . whereas a friend may speak as the 
case requires, and not as it sorteth with the 
person ; but to enumerate these things were 
10 



110 OP EXPENSE. 

endless , I have given the rule, where a man 
cannot fitly play his own part ; if he have not 
a friend, he may quit the stage. 



OF EXPENSE. 



Riches are for spending, and spending for 
honour and good actions ; therefore extraordi- 
nary expense must be limited by the worth of 
the occasion; for voluntary undoing may be 
as well for a man's country as for the kingdom 
of heaven ; but ordinary expense ought to be 
limited by a man's estate, and governed with 
such regard as it be within his compass , 
and not subject to deceit and abuse of ser- 
vants ; and ordered to the best show, that the 
bills may be less than the estimation abroad. 
Certainly, if a man will keep but of even 
hand, his ordinary expenses ought to be but 
to the half of his receipts ; and if he think to 
wax rich, but to the third part. It is no base- 
ness for the greatest to descend and look into 
their own estate. Some forbear it, not upon 
negligence alone, but doubting to bring them- 
selves into melancholy, in respect they shall 
find it broken : but wounds cannot be cured 
without searching. He that cannot look into 
his own estate at all had need both choose 
well those whom he employeth, and change 
them often ; for new are more timorous and 
less subtle. He that can look into his estate 



OP THE TRUE GREATNESS, &C. Ill 

but seldom, it behooveth him to turn all to cer- 
tainties. A man had need, if he be plentiful 
in some kind of expense, to be as saving again 
in some other; as, if he be plentiful in diet, 
to be saving in apparel ; if he be plentiful in 
the hall, to be saving in the stable, and the 
like : for he that is plentiful in expenses of all 
kinds will hardly be preserved from decay. 
In clearing of a man's estate, he may as well 
hurt himself in being too sudden, as in letting 
it run on too long ; for hasty selling is com- 
monly as disadvantageable as interest. Be- 
sides, he thatf clears at once will relapse ; for, 
finding himself out of straits, he will revert to 
his customs ; but he that cleareth by degrees 
induceth a habit of frugality, and gaineth as 
well upon his mind as upon his estate. Cer- 
tainly, who hath a state to repair may not de- 
spise small tnings ; aiid, commonly, it is less 
dishonourable to abridge petty charges than to 
stoop to petty gettings. A man ought warily 
to begin charges, which once begun will con- 
tinue : but in matters that return not he may 
be more magnificent. 



OF THE TRUE GREATNESS OF KINGDOMS 
AND ESTATES. 

The speech of Themistocles the Athenian, 
which was haughty and arrogant, in takiag so 
much to himself, had been a grave and wise 
observation and censure, applied, at large, to 



112 OF THE TRUE GREATNESS 

others. Desired at a feast to touch a lute, he 
said, a he could not riddle, but yet he could 
make a small town a great city." These 
words (holpen a little with a metaphor) may 
express two differing abilities in those that deal 
in business of estate ; for, if a true survey be 
taken of counsellors and statesmen, there may 
be found (though rarely) those which can 
make a small state great, and yet cannot fid- 
dle ; as, on the other side, there will be found 
a great many that can fiddle very cunningly, 
but yet are so far from being able to make a 
small state great, as their gift lieth the other 
way ; to bring a great and flourishing estate to 
ruin and decay ; and, certainly, those degene- 
rate arts and shifts, whereby many counsellors 
and governors gain both favour with their 
masters, and estimation with the vulgar, de- 
serve no better name than fiddling ; being 
things rather pleasing for the time, and grace- 
ful to themselves only, than tending to the 
weal and advancement of the state which they 
serve. There are also (no doubt) counsellors 
and governors which may be held sufficient, 
u negotiis pares," able to manage affairs, and 
to keep them from precipices and manifest in- 
conveniences ; which, nevertheless, are far 
from the ability to raise and amplify an estate 
in power, means, and fortune : but be the 
workmen what they may be. let us speak of 
the work ; that is, the true greatness of king- 
doms and estates, and the means thereof. An 
argument fit for great and mighty princes to 



OF KINGDOMS AND ESTATES. 113 

nave in their hand ; to the end, that neither 
by overmeasuring their forces they lose them- 
selves in vain enterprises; nor, on the other 
side, by undervaluing them, they descend to 
fearful and pusillanimous counsels. 

The greatness of an estate, in bulk and ter- 
ritory, doth fall under measure ; and the great- 
ness of finances and revenue doth fall under 
computation. The population may appear by 
musters ; and the number and greatness of 
cities and towns by cards and maps ; but yet 
there is not any thing, amongst civil affairs, 
more subject to error than the right valuation 
and true judgment concerning the power and 
forces of an estate. The kingdom of heaven 
is compared, not to any great kernel, or nut, 
but to a grain of mustard-seed ; which is one 
of the least grains, but hath in it a property 
and spirit hastily to get up and spread. So 
are there states great in territory, and yet not 
apt to enlarge or command : and some that 
have but a small dimension of stem, and yet 
are apt to be the foundation of great monar- 
chies. 

Walled towns, stored arsenals and armories, 
goodly races of horse, chariots of war, ele- 
phants, ordnance, artillery, and the like ; all 
this is but a sheep in a lion's skin, except the 
breed and disposition of the people be stout 
and war ike. Nay, number (itself) in armies 
importeth not much, where the people are of 
weak courage ; for, as Virgil saith, " it never 
troubles the wolf how many the sheep be.' 
R 



114 OF THE TRUE GREATNESS 

The army of the Persians, in the plains of Ar- 
bela, was such a vast sea of people as it did 
somewhat astonish the commanders in Alex- 
ander's army, who came to him, therefore, and 
wished him to set upon them by night ; but he 
answered, "he would not pilfer the victory;" 
and the defeat was easy. When Tigranes, the 
Armenian, being encamped upon a hill with 
four hundred thousand men, discovered the 
army of the Romans, being not above fourteen 
thousand, marching towards him, he made him- 
self merry with it, and said, " Yonder men are 
too many for an embassage, and too few for a 
fight:" but before the sun set, he found them 
enow to give him the chase, with infinite slaugh- 
ter. Many are the examples of the great odds 
between number and courage : so that a man 
may truly make a judgment, that the prin- 
cipal point of greatness in any state is to 
have a race of military men. Neither is 
money the sinews of war (as it is trivially 
said) where the sinews of men's arms in base 
and effeminate people are failing; for Solon 
said well to Crcesus, (when in ostentation he 
showed him his gold,) " Sir, if any othei 
come that hath better iron than you, he will 
be master of all this gold." Therefore, let 
any prince, or state, think soberly of his forces, 
except his militia of natives be of good and 
valiant soldiers ; and let princes on the other 
side, that have subjects of martial disposition, 
know their own strength, unless they be other- 
wise wanting unto themselves. As for mer- 



OF KINGDOMS AND ESTATES. lib 

cenary forces, (which is the help in this case,) 
all examples show that, whatsoever estate, or 
prince, doth rest upon them, he may spread 
his feathers for a time, but he will mew them 
soon after. 

The blessing of Judas and Issachar will 
never meet ; that the same people, or nation, 
should be both the lion's whelp and the ass 
between burdens ; neither will it be, that a 
people overlaid with taxes should ever become 
valiant and martial. It is true, that taxes, levi- 
ed by consent of the estate, do abate men's 
courage less ; as it hath been seen notably m 
the exercises of the Low Countries ; and, in 
some degree, in the subsidies of England : for, 
you must note, that we speak now of the heart, 
and not of the purse ; so that, although trie 
same tribute and tax, laid by consent or by 
imposing, be all one to the purse, yet it works 
diversely upon the courage. So that you may 
conclude, that no people overcharged with 
tribute is fit for empire. 

Let states, that aim at greatness, take heed 
how their nobility and gentlemen do multiply 
too fast; for that maketh the common subject 
grow to be a peasant and base swain, driven 
out of heart, and, in effect, but a gentleman'** 
labourer. Even as you may see in coppice 
woods, if you leave your straddles too thick, 
you shall never have clean underwood, but 
shrubs and bushes. So in countries, if the 
gentlemen be too many, the commons will be 
base; and you will bring it to that, that not 



116 OP THE TRUE GREATNESS 

the hundredth poll will be fit for a helmet ; 
especially as to the infantry, which is the 
nerve of an army : and so there will be great 
population and little strength. This which I 
speak of hath been no where better seen than 
by comparing of England and France ; whereof 
England, though far less in territory and pop- 
ulation, hath been (nevertheless) an over- 
match ; in regard the middle people of Eng- 
land make good soldiers, which the peasants 
of France do not : and herein the device of 
King Henry the Seventh (whereof I have 
spoken largely in the history of his life) was 
profound and admirable ; in making farms and 
nouses of husbandry of a standard; that is, 
maintained with such a proportion of land unto 
them as may breed a subject to live in conve- 
nient plenty, and no servile condition ; and 
to keep the plough in the hands of the owners, 
and not mere hirelings ; and thus indeed ye 
shall attain to Virgil's character, which he gives 
to ancient Italy : 

" Terra potens armis atque ubere glebae." 

Neither is that state (which, for any thing I 
know, is almost peculiar to England, and 
hardly to be found any where else, except it 
be perhaps in Poland) to be passed over ; I 
mean the state of free servants and attendants 
upon noblemen and gentlemen, which are no 
ways inferiour unto the yeomanry for arms ; 
and, therefore, out of all question, the splen- 
dour and magnificence, and great retinues, the 



OP KINGDOMS AND ESTATES. 117 

hospitality of noblemen and gentlemen re- 
ceived into custom, do much conduce unto 
martial greatness : whereas, contrariwise, the 
close and reserved living of noblemen and 
gentlemen causeth a penury of military forces. 
By all means it is to be procured, that the 
trunk of Nebuchadnezzar's tree of monarchy 
be great enough to bear the branches and the 
boughs ; that is, that the natural subjects of the 
^rown or state bear a sufficient proportion to the 
strange subjects that they govern : therefore, 
all states that are liberal of naturalization to- 
wards strangers are fit for empire : for to think 
that a handful of people can, with the greatest 
courage and policy in the world, embrace too 
large extent of dominion, it may hold for a 
time, but it will fail suddenly. The Spartans 
were a nice people in point of naturalization : 
whereby, while they kept their, compass, they 
stood firm ; but when they did spread, and 
their boughs were become too great for their 
stem, they became a windfall upon the sudden. 
Never any state was, in this point, so open to 
receive strangers into their body as were the 
Romans; therefore it sorted with them ac- 
cordingly, for they grew to the greatest mon- 
archy. Their manner was to grant naturaliza- 
tion, (which they called "jus civitatis,") and 
to grant it in the highest degree, that is, not 
only " jus commercii, jus connubii. jus haere- 
ditatis ;" but also " jus suffragii," and "jus 
honorum ;" and this not to singular persons 
alone, but likewise tc whote families ; yea, to 



118 OF THE TRUE GREATNESS 

citiesj and sometimes to nations. Add to this 
their custom of plantation of colonies, where- 
by the Roman plant was removed into the soil 
of other nations ; and, putting both constitu- 
tions together, you will say, that it was not the 
Romans that spread upon the world, but it 
was the world that spread upon the Romans ; 
and that was the sure way of greatness. I 
have marvelled sometimes at Spain, how they 
clasp and contain so large dominions with so 
few natural Spaniards : but sure the whole 
compass of Spain is a very great body of a 
tree, far above Rome and Sparta at the first ; 
and, besides, though they have not had that 
usage to naturalize liberally, yet they have that 
which is next to it ; that is, to employ, almost 
indifferently, all nations in their militia of or- 
dinary soldiers ; yea, and sometimes in their 
highest commands : nay, it seemeth, at this in- 
stant, they are sensible of tHs want of natives : 
as by the pragmatical sanction, now published, 
appeareth. 

It is. certain, that sedentary and within-door 
arts, and delicate manufactures (that require 
rather the finger than the arm) have in their 
nature a contrariety to a military disposition ; 
and, generally, all warlike people are a little 
idle, and love danger better than travail , nei- 
ther must they be too much broken of it, if 
they shall bo preserved in vigour : therefore, 
it was great advantage in the ancient states 
of Sparta, Athens, Rome, and others, that they 
had the use of slaves, which commonly did 



OF KINGDOMS AND ESTATES. 119 

rid those manufactures ; but that is abolished, 
in greatest part, by the Christian law. That 
which cometh nearest to it is, to leave those 
arts chiefly to strangers, (which, for that pur- 
pose, are the more easily to be received,) and 
to contain the principal bulk of the vulgar na- 
tives within those three kinds, tillers of the 
ground, free servants, and handicraftsmen of 
strong and manly arts ; as smiths, masons, 
carpenters, &c, not reckoning professed sol- 
diers. 

But, above all, for empire and greatness, il 
importeth most, that a nation do profess arms 
as their principal honour, study, and occupa- 
tion ; lor the things which we formerly have 
spoken of, are but habilitations towards arms ; 
and what is habitation without intention and 
act ? Romulus, after his death, (as they report 
or feign,) sent a present to the Romans, that 
above all they should intend arms, and then 
they should prove the greatest empire of the 
world. The fabric of the state of Sparta was 
wholly (thongh not wisely) framed and com- 
posed to that scope and end ; the Persians and 
Macedonians had it for a flash ; the Gauls, 
Germans, Goths, Saxons, Normans, and oth- 
ers, had it for a time : the Turks have it at 
this day, though in great declination. Of 
Christian Europe, they that have it are, in ef- 
fect, only the Spaniards : but it is so plain, that 
every man proflteth in that he most intendeth, 
that it needeth not to be stood upon : it is 
enough to point at it ; that no nation, which 



120 OF THE TRUE GREATNESS 

doth not directly profess arms, may look to 
have greatness fall into their mouths ; and, on 
the other side, it is a most certain oracle of 
time, that those states that continue long in 
that profession (as the Romans and Turks 
principally have done) do wonders; and those 
that have professed arms but for an age have, 
notwithstanding, commonly attained that great- 
ness in that age which maintained them long 
after, when their profession and exercise* of 
arms hath grown to decay. 

Incident t3 this point is for a state to have 
those laws or customs which may reach forth 
unto them just occasions (as may be pretend- 
ed) of war ; for there is that justice imprinted 
in the nature of men, that they enter not upon 
wars, (whereof so many calamities do ensue,) 
but upon some, at the least specious, grounds 
and quarrels. The Turk hath at hand, for 
cause of war, the propagation of his lav/ or 
sect, a quarrel that he may always command. 
The Romans, though they esteemed the ex- 
tending the limits of their empire to be great 
honour to their generals when it was done, 
yet they never rested upon that alone to begin 
a war : first, therefore, let nations that pre- 
tend to greatness have this, that they be sen- 
sible of wrongs, either upon borderers, mer- 
chants, or politic ministers ; and that they sit 
not too long upon a provocation : secondly, let 
them be pressed and ready to give aids and 
succours to their confederates as it ever was 
with the Romans : insomuch as if the confed* 



OF KINGDOMS AND ESTATES. 121 

erates had leagues defensive with divers other 
states, and, upon invasion offered, did implore 
their aids severally, yet the Romans would 
ever be the foremost, and leave it to none 
other to have the honour. As for the wars, 
which were anciently made on the behaif of 
a kind of party, or tacit conformity of state, I 
do not see how they may be well justified : as 
when the Romans made a war for the liberty 
cf Graecia ; or, when the Lacedaemonians and 
Athenians made war to set up Or pull down 
democracies and oligarchies : or, when wars 
were made by foreigners, under the pretence 
of justice or protection, to deliver the subjects 
of others from tyranny and oppression, and the 
like. Let it suffice, that no estate expect to 
be great, that is not awake upon any just oc- 
casion of arming. 

No body can be healthful without exercise, 
neither natural body nor politic ; and, certain- 
ly, to a kingdom, or estate, a just and honour- 
able war is the true exercise. A civil war, 
indeed, is like the heat of a fever ; but a for- 
eign war is like the heat of exercise, and 
serveth to keep the body in health ; for, in a 
slothful peace, both courages will effeminate, 
and manners corrupt ; but howsoever it be for 
luippiness, without all question for greatness, 
it maketh to be still for the most part in arms : 
and the strength of a veteran army, (though it 
be a chargeable business,) always on foot, is that 
which commonly giveth the law; or, at least, 
the reputation amongst all neighbour states, as 
11 



122 OF THE TRUE GREATNESS 

may be well seen in Spain ; which hath had, 
in one part or other, a veteran army almost 
continually, now by the space of six score 
years. 

To be master of the sea is an abridgment 
of a monarchy. Cicero, writing to Atticus of 
Pompey's preparation against Caesar, saith, 
"Consilium Pompeii plane Themistocleum 
est ; putat enim, qui mari potitur, eum rerum 
potiri ;" and, without doubt, Pompey had tired 
out Csesar, if upon vain confidence he had not 
left that way. We see the great effects of 
battles by sea : the battle of Actium decided 
the empire of the world ; the battle of Lepanto 
arrested the greatness of the Turk. Tliere 
be many examples, where sea fights have been 
final to the war . but this is when princes, or 
states, have set up their rest upon the battles ; 
but thus much is certain, that he that com- 
mands the sea is at grea., liberty, and may 
take as much and as little of the war as he 
will ; whereas, those that be strongest by 
land are many times, nevertheless, in great 
straits. Surel)% at this day, with us of Eu- 
rope, the vantage of strength at sea (which is 
one of the principal dowries of this kingdom 
of Great Britain) is great ; both because most 
of the kingdoms of Europe are not merely 
inland, but girt with the sea most part of their 
compass; and because the wealth of both 
Indies seems, in great part, but an accessary 
to the command of the seas. 

The wars of later ages seem to be made in 



OF KINGDOMS AND ESTATES. 123 

the dark, in respect of the glory and honour 
which reflected upon men from the wars in 
ancient time. There be now, for martial encour- 
agement, some degrees and orders of chivalry, 
which, nevertheless, are conferred promiscuous- 
ly upon soldiers and no soldiers, and some re- 
membrance perhaps upon the escutcheon, and 
some hospitals for maimed soldiers, and such 
like things ; but, in ancient times, the trophies 
erected upon the place of the victory ; the 
funeral laudatives and monuments for those 
that died in the wars ; the crowns and gar- 
lands personal; the style of emperor, which 
the great kings of the world after borrowed ; 
the triumphs of the generals upon their return ; 
the great donatives and largesses upon the dis- 
banding of the armies, — were things able to in- 
flame all men's courages ; but, above all, that 
of the triumph amongst the Romans was not 
pageants, or gaudery, but one of the wisest 
and noblest institutions that ever was ; for it 
contained three things, honour to the genera^ 
riches to the treasury out of the spoils, and 
donatives to the army : but tkat honour, per- 
haps, were not fit for monarchies ; except it 
be in the person of the monarch himself, or 
his sons; as it came to pass in the times 
of the Roman emperors, who did impro- 
priate the actual triumphs to themselves 
and their sons, for such wars as they did 
achieve in person, and left only for wars 
achieved by subjects some triumphal garments 
and ensigns to the general. 



1^4 OF REGIMEN OF HEALTH. 

To conclude : no man can, by care taking, 
(as the scripture saith,) " add a cubit to his 
stature," in this little model of a man's body ; 
but in the great frame of kingdoms and com- 
monwealths, it is in the power of princes, or 
estates, to add amplitude and greatness to their 
kingdoms ; for, by introducing such ordi- 
nances, constitutions, and customs, as we have 
now touched, they may sow greatness to their 
posterity and succession : but these things are 
commonly not observed, but left to take their 
chance. 



OF REGIMEN OF HEALTH. 

There is a wisdom in this beyond the rules 
of physic ; a man's own observation, what he 
finds good of, and what he finds hurt of, is the 
best physic to preserve health ; but it is a 
safer conclusion to say, " This agreeth not 
well with me, therefore I will not continue 
it," than this, " I find no offence of this, 
therefore I maj use it :" for strength of na- 
ture in youth passeth over many excesses 
which are owing a man till his age. Discern 
of the coming on of years, and think not to do 
the same things still ; for age will not be de- 
fied. Beware of sudden change in any great 
point of diet, and, if necessity enforce it, fit 
the rest to it ; for it is a secret, both in nature 
and state, that it is safer to change many 
things than one. Examine thy customs of 



OP REGIMEN OF HEALTH. 125 

diet, sleep, exercise, apparel, and the like ; 
and try, in any thing thou sh alt judge hurtful, 
to discontinue it by little and little ; but so as, 
if thou dost find any inconvenience by the 
change, thou come back to it again : for it is 
hard to distinguish that which is generally 
held good and wholesome from that which is 
good particularly, and fit for thine own body. 
To be free-minded and cheerfully disposed at 
hours of meat and sleep, and of exercise, is 
one of the best precepts of long lasting. As 
for the passions and studies of the mind, avoid 
envy, anxious fears, anger, fretting inwards, 
subtile and knotty inquisitions, joys and exhil- 
arations in access, sadness not communicated. 
Entertain hopes, mirth rather than joy, variety 
of delights rather than surfeit of th^m ; won- 
der and admiiation, and therefore novelties ; 
studies that fill the mind with splendid and 
illustrious objects, as histories, fables, and 
contemplations of nature. If you fly physic 
in health altogether, it will be too strange for 
your body when you shall need it ; if you 
make it too familiar, it will work no extraor- 
dinary effect when sickness cometh. I com- 
mend rather some diet for certain seasons than 
frequent use of physic, except it be grown into 
a custom ; for those diets alter the body more, 
and trouble it less. Despise no new accident 
in your body, but ask opinion of it. In sick- 
ness, respect health principally ; and in health, 
action : for those that put their bodies to en- 
dure health, may, in most sicknesses which 
11 * 



126 OF SUSPICION. 

are not very sharp, be cured only with diet 
and tendering. Celsus oould never have 
spoken it as a physician, had he not been a 
wise man withal, when he giveth it for one of 
tiie great precepts of health and lasting, that 
a man do vary and interchange contraries ; 
but with an inclination to the more benign 
extreme : use fasting and full eating, but 
rather full eating; watching and sleep, but 
rather sleep ; sitting and exercise, but rather 
exercise, and the like : so shall nature be 
cherished, and yet taught masteries. Physi- 
cians are some of them so pleasing and com- 
formable to the humour of the patient, as they 
press not the true cure of the disease ; and 
some other are so regular in proceeding ac- 
cording to art for the disease, as they respect 
not sufficiently the condition of the patient. 
Take one of a middle temper ; or, if it may 
not be found in one man, combine two of 
either sort; and forget not to call as well 
the best acquainted with your body, as the 
best reputed of for his faculty. 



OF SUSPICION. 



Suspicions amongst thoughts are like bats 
amongst birds, they ever fly by twilight : cer- 
tainly they are to be repressed, or, at the least, 
well guarded ; for they cloud the mind, they 
lose friends, and they check with business, 
whereby business cannot go on currently and 



OF SUSPICION. 127 

constantly: they dispose kings to tyranny, 
husbands to jealousy, wise men to irresolution 
and melancholy : they are defects, not in the 
heart, but in the brain ; for they take place in 
the stoutest natures : as in the example of 
Henry *the Seventh of England ; there was 
not a more suspicious man nor a more stout : 
and in such a composition they do small hurt ; 
for commonly they are not admitted but with 
examination, whether they be likely or no ; 
but in fearful natures they gain ground too 
fast. There is nothing makes a man suspect 
much, more than to know little ; and, there- 
fore, men should remedy suspicion by procur- 
ing to know more, and not to keep their sus- 
picions in smother. What would men have ? 
do they think those they employ and deal with 
are saints ? do they not think they will have 
their own ends, and be truer to themselves 
than to them ? therefore there is no better 
way to moderate suspicions than to account 
upon such suspicions as true, and yet to bridle 
them as false : for so far a man ought to 
make use of suspicions as to provide, as if 
that should be true that he suspects, yet it may 
do him no hurt. Suspicions that the mind of 
itself gathers are but buzzes; but suspicions 
that are artificially nourished, and put into 
men's heads by the tales and whisperings of 
others, have stings. Certainly, the best mean 
to clear the way in this same wood of suspi- 
cions, is frankly to communicate them with the 
party that he suspects ; for thereby he shall 



128 OP DISCOURSE. 

be sure to know more of the truth of them 
than he did before ; and withal shall make 
that party more circumspect, not to give fur- 
ther cause of suspicion ; but this would not be 
done to men of base natures ; for they, if they 
find themselves once suspected, will never be 
true. The Italian says, " Sospetto licentia 
fede;" as if suspicion did give a passport to 
faith ; but it ought rather to kindle it to dis- 
charge itself. 



OF DISCOURSE. 

Some in their discourse desire rather com- 
mendation of wit, in being able to hold all ar- 
guments, than of judgment, in discerning what 
is true ; as if it were a praise to know what 
might be said, and not what should be thought. 
Some have certain common places and themes, 
wherein they are good, and want variety; 
which kind of poverty is, for the most part, 
tedious, and, when it is once perceived, ridic- 
ulous. The honourablest part of talk is to 
give the occasion ; and again to moderate and 
pass to somewhat else, for then a man leads 
the dance. It is good in discourse, and speech 
of conversation, to vary and intermingle speech 
of the present occasion with arguments, tales 
with reasons, asking of questions with telling 
of opinions, and jest w T ith earnest : for it is a 
dull thing to tire, and, as we say now, to jade 
any thing too far. As for jest, there be cer- 



OF DISCOURSE. 129 

tain things which ought to be privileged from 
it ; namely, religion, matters of state, great per 
sons, any man's present business of importance, 
and any case that deserveth pity ; yet there be 
some that think their wits have been asleep, 
except they dart out somewhat that is piquant, 
and to the quick ; that is a vein which should 
be bridled : 

" Parce puer stimulis, et fortius utere loris." 

And, generally, men ought to find the differ- 
ence between saltness and bitterness. Cer- 
tainly, he that hath a satirical vein, as he 
maketh others afraid of his wit, so he had 
need be afraid of others' memory. He that 
questioneth much shall learn much, and con- 
tent much ; but especially if he apply his 
questions to the skill of the persons whom he 
asketh ; for he shall give them occasion tc 
please themselves in speaking, and himself 
shall continually gather knowledge ; but let 
his questions not be troublesome, for that is fit 
for a poser ; and let him be sure to leave other 
men their turns to speak : nay, if there be any 
that would reign, and take up ail the time, let 
him find means to take them off, and bring 
others on : as musicians use to do with those 
that dance too long galliards. If you dissem- 
ble sometimes your knowledge of that you are 
thought to know, you shall be thought, another 
time, to know that you know not. Speech 
of a man's self ought to be seldom, and well 
chosen. I knew one was wont to say in scorn, 
S 



130 OF DISCOURSE. 

" He must needs be a wise man, he speaks so 
much of himself:" and there is but one case 
wherein a man may commend himself with 
good grace, and that is in commending virtue 
in another, especially if it be such a virtue 
whereunto himself pretendeth. Speech of 
touch towards others should be sparingly used , 
'or discourse ought to be as a field, without 
Coming home to any man. I knew two no- 
blemen, of the west part of England, whereof 
the one was given to scoff, but kept ever 
royal cheer in his house ; the other would ask 
of those that had been at the other's table, 
4< Tell truly, was there never a flout or dry 
blow given ?" to which the guest would an- 
swer, " Such and such a thing passed :" the 
lord would say, " I thought he would mar a 
good dinner." Discretion of speech is more 
than eloquence; and to speak agreeably to 
him with whom we deal, is more than to 
speak in good words, or in good order. A 
good continued speech, without a good speech 
of interlocution, shows slowness ; and a good 
reply, or second speech, without a good settled 
speech, showeth shallowness and weakness. 
As we see in beasts ; those that are weakest in 
the course, are yet nimblest in the turn ; as it 
is betwixt the greyhound and the hare. To 
use too many circumstances, ere one come to 
the liiatter, is wearisome ; to use none at 
all, is blunt. 



OF PLANTATIONS. 131 



OF PLANTATIONS. 

Plantations are amongst ancient, primitive 
and heroical works. When the world was 
young it begat more children ; but now it is 
old it begets fewer : for I may justly account 
new plantations to be the children of former 
kingdoms. I like a plantation in a pure soil ; 
that is, where people are not displanted to the 
end to plant in others ; for else it is rather an 
extirpation than a plantation. Planting of 
countries is like pi anting of woods ; for you must 
make account to lose almost twenty years' 
profit, and expect your recompense in the end : 
for the principal thing that hath been the de- 
struction of most plantations hath been the 
base and hasty drawing of profit in the first 
years. It is true, speedy profit is not to be 
neglected, as far as it may stand with the good 
of the plantation, but no farther. It is a 
shameful and unblessed thing to take the scum 
of people, and wicked, condemned men, to be 
the people with whom you plant; and not 
only so, but it spcileth the plantation; for 
they will ever live like rogues, and not fall to 
work, but be lazy, and do mischief, and spend 
victuals, and be quickly weary, and then cer- 
tify over to their country to the discredit of 
the plantation. The people wherewith you 
plant ought to be gardeners, ploughmen, la- 
bourers, smiths, carpenters, joiners, fishermen, 
fowlers, with some few apothecaries, surgeons, 



132 OF PLANTATIONS. 

cooks, and bakers. In a country of planta- 
tion, first look about what kind of victual the 
country yields of itself to hand : as chestnuts, 
walnuts, pine-apples, olives, dates, plums, 
cherries, wild honey, and the like, and make 
use of them. Then consider what victual, 
or esculent things there are, which grow speed- 
ily, and within the year ; as parsnips, carrots, 
turnips, onions, radish, artichokes of Jerusa- 
lem, maize, and the like : for wheat, barley, 
and oats, they ask too much labour ; but with 
pease and beans you may begin ; both because 
they ask less labour, and because they serve 
for meat as well as for bread ; and of rice, 
likewise, cometh a greart increase, and it is a 
kind of meat. Above all, there ought to be 
brought store of biscuit, oatmeal, flour, meal, 
and the like, in the beginning, till bread may 
be had. For beasts or birds, take chiefly such 
as are least subject to diseases, and multiply 
fastest ; as swine, goats, cocks, hens, turkeys, 
geese, house-doves, and the like. The victual 
in plantations ought to be expended almost as 
in a besieged town ; that is, with certain al- 
lowance : and let the main part of the ground, 
employed to gardens or corn, be to a common 
stock ; and to be laid in, and stored up, and 
then delivered out in proportion ; besides some 
spots of ground that any particular person 
will manure for his own private use. Consid- 
er, likewise, what commodities the soil where 
the plantation is doth naturally yield, that they 
may some way help to defray the charge of 



OF PLANTATIONS. 133 

the plantation 3 so it be not, as was said, to 
the untimely prejudice of the main business, 
as it hath fared with tobacco in Vir^niia. 
AYood commonly aboundeth but too much ; 
and therefore timber is fit to be one. If there 
be iron ore, and streams whereupon to set the 
mills, iron is a brave commodity where wood 
aboundeth. Making of bay-sait, if the climate 
be proper for it, would be put in experience : 
growing silk, likewise, if any be, is a likely 
commodity : pitch and tar, where store of firs 
and pines are, will not fail ; so drugs and 
sweet woods, where they are, cannot but yield 
profit; soap-ashes, likewise, and other things 
that may be thought of; but moil not too 
much under ground, for the hope of mines is 
very uncertain, and useth to make the planters 
lazy in other things. For government, let it 
be in the hands of one, assisted with some 
counsel ; and let them have commission to ex- 
ercise martial laws, with some limitation ; and, 
above all, let men make that profit of being 
in the wilderness, as they have God always, 
and his service, before their eyes : let not the 
government of the plantation depend upon too 
many counsellors and undertakers in the coun- 
try that planteth, but upon a temperate num- 
ber ; and let those be rather noblemen and 
gentlemen than merchants ; for they look ever 
to the present gain : let there be freedoms 
from custom, till the plantation be of strength ; 
and not only freedom from custom, but free- 
dom to carry their commodities where they 
12 



134 OF PJ.ANTATJON3. 

may make their best of them, except there be 
some special cause of caution. Cram not in 
people, by sending too fast company after 
company ; but rather hearken how they waste, 
and send supplies proportionably ; but so as 
the number may live well in the plantation, 
and not by surcharge be in penury. It hath 
been a great endangering to the health of some 
plantations, that they have built along the 
sea and rivers, in marish and unwholesome 
grounds : therefore, though ycu begin there 
to avoid carriage and other like discommodi- 
ties, yet build still rather upwards from the 
stream than along. It concerneth, likewise, 
the health of the plantation, that they have 
good store of salt with them, that they may 
use it m their victuals when it shall be neces- 
sary. If you plant where savages are, do not 
only entertain them with trifles and gingles, 
but use them justly and graciously, with suffi- 
cient guard nevertheless ; and do not win their 
favour by helping them to invade their ene- 
mies, but for their defence it is not amiss ; and 
send oft of them over to the country that 
plants, that they may see a better condition 
than their own, and commend it when they 
return. When the plantation grows to strength, 
then it is time to plant with women as well as 
with men ; that the plantation may spread into 
generations, and not be ever pierced from 
without. It is the sinfulest thing in the 
world to forsake or destitute a plantation 
once in forwardness; for, besides the dis- 



OP RICHES. 135 

honour, it is the guiltiness of blood of many 
eommiserable persons. 



OF RICHES. 



I cannot call riches better than the baggage 
of virtue ; the Roman word is better, " imped- 
imenta ;" for as the baggage is to an army, so 
is riches to virtue; it cannot be spared nor 
left behind, but it hindereth the march ; yea, 
and the care of it sometimes loseth or disturb- 
eth the victory; of great riches there is no 
real use, except it be in the distribution ; the 
rest is but conceit ; so saith Solomon, u Where 
much is, there are many to consume it ; and 
what hath the owner but the sight of it with 
his eyes ?" The personal fruition in any man 
cannot reach to feel great riches : there is a 
custody of them; or a power of doie and 
donative of them ; or a fame of them ; but no 
solid use to the owner. Do you not see what 
feip-ned prices are set upon little stones and 
rarities ? and what works of ostentation are 
undertaken, because there might seem to be 
some use of great riches ? But then you will 
say, they may be of use to buy men out cf 
dangers or troubles ; as Solomon saith, 
" Riches are as a strong hold in the imagina- 
tion of the rich man :" but this is excellently 
expressed, that it is in imagination, and 
not always in fact : for, certainly, great riches 
have sold more men than they have bought 



136 OF RICHES. 

out. Seek not proud riches, but such as thou 
mayst get justly, use soberly, distribute cheer- 
fully, and leave contentedly ; yet have no ab- 
stract or friarly contempt of them ; but distin- 
guish, as Cicero saith well of Rabirius Post- 
humus, " in studio rei amplificandse appare- 
bat, non avaritiae prsedam, sed instrumentum 
bonitati quseri." Hearken also to Solomon, 
and beware of hasty gathering of riches; 
" Qui festinat ad divitias, non erit insons." 
The poets feign that when Plutus (which is 
riches) is sent from Jupiter, he limps, and 
goes slowly ; but when he is sent from Pluto, 
he runs, and is swift of foot ; meaning, that 
riches gotten by good means and just labour 
pace slowly ; but when they come by the 
death of others, (as by the course of inheri- 
tance, testaments, and the like,) they come 
tumbling upon a man : but it might be applied 
likewise to Pluto, taking him for the devil : 
for when riches come from the devil, (as by 
fraud and oppression, and unjust means,) they 
3ome upon speed. The ways to enrich are 
many, and most of them foul : parsimony is 
one of the best, and yet is not innocent ; for it 
withholdeth men from works of liberality and 
charity. The improvement of the ground is 
the most natural obtaining of riches ; for it is 
our great mother's blessing, the earth ; but it 
is slow : and yet, where men of great wealth 
do stoop to husbandry, it multiplieth riches 
exceedingly. I knew a nobleman of England, 
that had the greatest audits of any man in my 



OF RICHES. 137 

time, a great grazier, a great sheep master, a 
great timber man, a great collier, a great corn 
master, a great lead man, and so of iron, and a 
number of the like points of husbandry ; so as 
the earth seemed a sea to him in respect of the 
perpetual importation. It was truly observed 
by one, " That himself came very hardly to 
little riches, and very easily to great riches ;" 
for when a man's stock is come to that, that 
he can expect the prime of markets, and over- 
come those bargains, which for their greatness 
are few men's money, and be partner in the 
industries of younger men, he cannot but 
increase mainly. The gains of ordinary trades 
and vocations are honest, and furthered by two 
things, chiefly, by diligence, and by a good 
name for good and fair dealing; but the gains 
of bargains are of a more doubtful nature, 
when men shall wait upon others' necessity ; 
broke by servants and instruments to draw 
them on ; put off others cunningly that would 
be better chapmen, and the like practices, 
which are crafty and naughty : as for the 
chopping of bargains when a man buys not to 
hold, but to sell over again, that commonly 
grindeth double, both upon the seller and upon 
the buyer. Sharings do greatly enrich, if the 
hands be well chosen that are trusted. Usury 
is the certainest means of gain, though one ol 
the worst, as that whereby a man doth eat his 
bread, " in sudorevultus alieni;" and besides, 
doth plough upon Sundays : but yet, certain 
though it be, it hath flaws ; for that the scriv- 
12* 



138 



OF RICHES. 



eners and brokers do value unsound men to 
serve their own turn. The fortune, in being 
the first in an invention, or in a privilege, 
doth cause sometimes a wonderful overgrowth 
in riches ; as it was with the first sugar man 
in the Canaries ; therefore, if a man can play 
the true logician, to have as well judgment as 
invention, he may do great matters, especially 
if the times be fit : he that resteth upon gains 
certain shall hardly grow to great riches ; and 
he that puts all upon adventures, doth often- 
times break and come to poverty : it is good, 
therefore, to guard adventures with certainties 
that may uphold losses. Monopolies, and co- 
emption of wares for resale, where they are 
not restrained, are great means to enrich ; 
especially if the party have intelligence what 
things are like to come into request, and so 
store himself beforehand. Riches gotten by 
service, though it be of the best rise, yet when 
they are gotten by flattery, feeding humours, 
and other servile conditions, they may be 
placed amongst the worst. As for fishing for 
testaments and executorships, (as Tacitus saith 
of Seneca, " testamenta et orbos tanquam 
indagine capi,") it is yet worse, by how much 
men submit themselves to meaner persons than 
in service. Believe not much them that seem 
to despise riches, for they despise them that 
despair of them ; and none worse when they 
come to them. Be not penny-wise; riches 
have wings, and sometimes they fly away of 
themselves, sometimes they must be set flying 



OP PROPHECIES. 139 

to bring in more. Men leave their riches 
either to their kindred or to the public ; and 
moderate portions prosper best in both. A 
great estate left to an heir is as a lure to all the 
birds of prey round about to seize on him, if he 
be not the better established in years and judg- 
ment : likewise glorious gifts and foundations 
are like sacrifices without salt ; and but the 
painted sepulchres of alms, which soon will 
putrify and corrupt inwardly : therefore, meas- 
ure not thine advancements by quantity, but 
frame them by measure : and defer not chari- 
ties till death : for certainly, if a man weigh it 
rightly, he that doth so is rather liberal of 
another man's than of his own. 



OF PROPHECIES. 
I mean not to speak of divine prophecies, 
nor of heathen oracles, nor of natural predic- 
tions ; but only of prophecies that have been 
of certain memory, and from hidden causes. 
Saith the Pythonissa to Saul, "Tomorrow 
thou and thy s^ns shall be with me." YirgiJ 
hath these verses from Homer : 

" At domus ^Eneas cunctis dominabitur oris, 

Et nati natorum, et qui nascentur ab illis." JEn. iii. 97. 

A prophecy as it seems of the Roman empire 
Seneca, the tragedian, hath these verses : 



: Venient annis 



Sfficula seris, quibus oceanus 
Vincula rerum laxet, et ingens 
Pa'.eat tellus, Tiphysque novo* 
Detegat orbes ; nee sit terria 
Ultima Tiiule ;" 



140 OF PROPHECIES. 

a prophecy of the discovery of" America. The 
daughter of Polycrates dreamed that Jupiter 
bathed her father, and Apollo anointed him ; 
and it came to pass that he was crucified in an 
open place, where the sun made his body run 
with sweat, and the rain washed it. Philip 
of Macedon dreamed he sealed up his wife's 
belly; whereby he did expound it, that his 
wife should be barren ; but Aristander, the 
soothsayer, told him his wife was with child, 
because men do not use to seal vessels that 
are empty. A phantom, that appeared to M. 
Brutus in his teat, said to him, " Philippis 
iterum me videbis." Tiberius said to Galba, 
" tu quoque, Galba, degustabis imperium." 
In Vespasian's time there went a prophecy in 
the East, that those that should come forth of 
Judea should reign over the world ; which 
though it may be was meant of our Saviour, 
yet Tacitus expounds it of Vespasian. Dom- 
itian dreamed, the night before he was slain, 
that a golden head was growing out of the 
nape of his neck ; and indeed *he succession 
that followed him, for many years, made golden 
times. Henry the Sixth of England said of 
Henry the Seventh, when he was a lad, and 
gave him water, " this is the lad that shall 
enjoy the crown for which we strive.' 5 When 
I was in France, I heard from one Dr. Pena, 
that the queen mother, who was given to curi- 
ous arts, caused the king her husband's nativ- 
ity to be calculated under a false name ; and the 
astrologer gave a judgment, that he should be 



OF PROPHECIES. 141 

killed in a duel ; at which the queen laughed, 
thinking her husband to be above challenges 
and duels : but he was slain upon a course 
at tilt, the splinters of the staff of Montgomery 
going in at his beaver. The trivial prophecy 
which I heard when I was a child, and queen 
Elizabeth was in the flower of her years, was, 

" When hempe is spun 
England's done:" 

whereby it was generally conceived, that after 
the princes had reigned which had the princi- 
pal letters of the w T ord hempe, (which were 
Henry, Edward, Mary, Philip, and Elizabeth,) 
England should come to utter confusion ; 
which, thanks be to God, is verified in the 
change of the name ; for the king's style is 
now no more of England but of Britain, 
There was also another prophecy before the 
year of eighty-eight, which I do not well 
understand : 

" There shall be seen upon a day, 
Between the Baugh and the May, 
The black fleet of Norway. 
When that is come and gone, 
England build houses of lime and stone, 
For after wars shall you have none." 

It was generally conceived to be meant of the 
Spanish fleet that came in eighty-eight: for 
that the king of Spain's surname, as they say, is 
Norway. The prediction of Regiomontanus, 

11 Octogesimus octavus mirabilis annus," 

was thought likewise accomplished in the 
sending of that great fleet, being the greatest 



142 OP PROPHECIES. 

in strength, though not in number, of all that 
ever swam upon the sea. As for Cleon's 
dream, I think it was a jest ; it was, that he 
was devoured of a long dragon ; and it was 
expounded of a maker of sausages, that trou- 
bled him exceedingly. There are numbers 
of the like kind ; especially if you include 
dreams, and predictions of astrology; but I 
have set down these few only of certain credit, 
for example. My judgment is, that they 
ought all to be despised, and ought to serve 
but for winter talk by the fireside. Though, 
when I say despised, I mean it as for belief; 
for otherwise, the spreading or publishing of 
them is in no sort to be despised, for they 
have done much mischief; and I see many 
severe laws made to suppress them. That 
that hath given them grace, and some credit, 
consisteth in three things. First, that men 
mark when they hit, and never mark when 
they miss; as they do, generally, also of 
dreams. The second is, that probable conjec- 
tures, or obscure traditions, many times turn 
themselves into prophecies : while the nature 
of man, which coveteth divination, thinks it 
no peril to foretell that which indeed they do 
but collect : as that of Seneca's verse ; for so 
much was then subject to demonstration, that 
the globe of the earth had great parts beyond 
the Atlantic, which might be probably con- 
ceived not to be all sea : and, adding thereto 
the tradition in Plato's Timaeus, and his Atlan- 
ticus, it might encourage one to turn it to a 



OP AMBITION. 143 

prediction. The third and last (which is the 
great one) is, that almost all of them, being 
infinite in number, have been impostures, and, 
by idle and crafty brains, merely contrived 
and feigned, after the event passed. 



OF AMBITION. 

Ambition is like cholcr, which is a hu- 
mour that maketh men active, earnest, fuJi of 
alacrity, and stirring, if it be not stopped : but 
if it be stopped, and cannot have its way, it 
becometh a dust, and thereby malign and ven 
omous : so ambitious men, if they find thf 
way open for their rising, and still get forward, 
they are rather busy than dangerous ; but, if 
they be checked in their desires, they become 
secretly discontent, and look upon men and 
matters with an evil eye, and are best pleased 
when things go backward ; which is the worst 
property in a servant of a prince or state : 
therefore it is good for princes, if they use 
ambitious men, to handle it so, as they be still 
progressive, and not retrograde, which, be- 
cause it cannot be without inconvenience, it is 
good not to use such natures at all ; for, if they 
rise not with their service, they will take order 
to make their service fall with them. But 
sinee we have said, it were good not to uce 
men of ambitious natures, except it be upon 
necessity, it is fit we speak in what cases they 
are of necessity. Good commanders in the 



144 OF AMBITION. 

wars must be taken, be they never so ambi 
tious ; for the use of their service dispenseth 
with the rest ; and to take a soldier without 
ambition is to pull off his spurs. There is also 
great use of ambitious men in being screens 
to princes in matters of danger and envy ; for 
no man will take that part except he be like a 
sealed dove, that mounts and mounts, because 
he cannot see about him. There is use also 
of ambitious men in pulling down the great- 
ness of any subject that overtops ; as Tiberius 
used Macro in the pulling down of Sejanus. 
Since, therefore, they must be used in such 
cases, there resteth to speak how they are to be 
riddled, that they may be less dangerous : 
there is less danger of them if they be of 
mean birth than if they be noble ; and if they 
be rather harsh of nature than gracious and 
popular : and if they be rather new raised 
than grown cunning and fortified in their 
greatness. It is counted by some a weakness 
in princes to have favourites ; but it is, of all 
others, the best remedy against ambitious 
great ones ; for when the way of pleasuring 
and displeasuring lieth by the favourite, it is 
impossible any other should be over great. 
Another means to curb them is, to balance 
them by others as proud as they ; but then 
there must be some middle counsellors, to keep 
things steady ; for without that ballast the 
ghip will roll too much. At the least, a prince 
may animate and inure some meaner persons 
to be, as it were 3 scourges to ambitious men. 



OF AMBITION. 145 

\s for the having of them obnoxious to nun, 
if they be of fearful natures, it may do well ; 
but if they be stout and daring, it may precip- 
itate their designs, and prove dangerous. As 
for the pulling of them down, if the affairs 
require it, and that it may not be done with 
safety suddenly, the only way is, the inter- 
change continually of favours and disgraces, 
whereby they may not know what to expect, 
and be, as it were, in a wood. Of ambitions, 
it is less harmful the ambition to prevail in 
great things, than that other to appear in every 
thing; for that breeds confusion, and mars 
business : but yet it is less danger to have an 
ambitious man stirring in business than great 
in dependences. He that seeketh to be emi- 
nent amongst able men hath a great task ; but 
that is ever good for the public : but he that 
plots to be the only figure amongst ciphers is 
the decay of a whole age. Honour hath three 
things in it ; the vantage ground to do good ; 
the approach to kings and principal persons ; 
and the raising of a man's own fortunes. He 
that hath the best of these intentions, when 
he aspireth, is an honest man ; and that prince 
that can discern of these intentions in another 
that aspireth, is a wise prince. Generally let 
princes and states choose such ministers as 
are more sensible of duty than of rising, and 
such as love business rather upon conscience 
han upon bravery ; and let them discern a 
ousy nature from a willing mind. 
T 



146 OF MASQUES AND TRIUMPHS. 



OF MASQUES AND TRIUMPHS. 

These things are but toys to come ainongs 4 
such serious observations ; but yet, since 
princes will have such things, it is better they 
should be graced with elegancy than daubed 
with cost. Dancing to song is a thing of great 
state and pleasure. I understand it that the 
song be in quire, placed aloft, and accompanied 
with some broken music ; and the ditty fitted 
to the device. Acting in song, especially in 
dialogues, hath an extreme good grace ; I say 
acting, not dancing, (for that is a mean and 
vulgar thing;) and the voices of the dialogue 
would be strong and manly, (a bass and a 
tenor ; no treble,) and the ditty high and trag- 
ical ; not nice or dainty. Several quires 
placed one over against another, and taking 
the voice by catches, anthemwise, give great 
pleasure. Turning dances into figure is a 
childish curiosity; and generally let it be 
noted, that those things which I here set 
down are such as do natuially take the sense, 
and not respect petty wonderments. It is true, 
the alterations of scenes, so it be quietly and 
without noise, are things of great beauty and 
pleasure; for they feed and relieve the eye 
before it be full of the same object. Let the 
scenes abound with light, especially coloured 
and varied ; an^TTet the masquers, or any other 
that are,t@i£6me down from the scene, have 



^ 



OF MASQUES AND TRIUMPHS. 147 

some motions upon the scene itself before their 
coming down ; for it draws the eye strangely, 
and makes it with great pleasure to desire to 
see that it cannot perfectly discern. Let the 
songs be loud and cheerful, and not chirpings 
or pulings : let the music likewise be sharp 
and loud, and well placed. The colours that 
show best by candle-light are white, carnation, 
and a kind of sea-water green ; and cuches, 
or spangs, as they are of no great cost, so they 
are of most glory. As for rich embroidery, it 
is lost and not discerned. Let the suits of the 
masquers be graceful, and such as become the 
person when the vizards are off; not after ex- 
amples of known attires ; Turks, soldiers* 
mariners, and the like. Let anti-masques not 
be long ; they have been commonly of fools, 
satyrs, baboons, wild men, antics, beasts, 
spirits, witches, Ethiopes, pigmies, turquets, 
nymphs, rustics, cupids, statues moving, and 
the like. As for angels, it is not comical 
enough to put them in anti-masques : and any 
thing that is hideous, as devils, giants, is, on 
the other side, as unfit ; but, chiefly, let the 
music of them be recreative, and with some 
strange changes. Some sweet odours suddenly 
coming forth, without any drops failing, are, 
in such a company as there is steam and heat, 
things of great pleasure and refreshment. 
Double masques, one of men, another of ladies, 
addeth state and variety ; but all is nothing, 
except the room be kept clean and neat. 



148 OF NATURE IN MEN. 

For justs, and tourneys, and barriers, the 
glories of them are chiefly in the chariots 
wherein the challengers make their entry; 
especially if they be drawn with strange 
beasts : as lions ? bears, camels, and the like ; 
or in the devices of their entrance, or in 
bravery of their liveries, or in the goodly 
furniture of their horses and armour. But 
enough of these toys. 



OF NATURE IN MEN. 

Nature is often hidden, sometimes over- 
come, seldom extinguished. Force maketh 
nature more violent in the return; doctrine 
and discourse maketh nature less importune ; 
but custom only doth alter and subdue nature. 
He that seeketh victory over his nature, let 
him not set himself too great nor too small 
tasks ; for the first will make him dejected 
by often failing, and the second will make 
him a small proceeder, though by often pre- 
vailing : and, at the first, let him practise with 
helps, as swimmers do with bladders <;«• rushes ; 
but, after a time, let him practise with disad- 
vantages, as dancers do with thick shoes ; for 
it breeds great perfection if the practice be 
harder than the use. Where nature is mighty, 
and therefore the victory hard, the degrees 
had need be, first, to stay and arrest nature in 
time; like to him that would say over the 






OF NATURE IN MEN. 149 

four-and-twenty letters when he was angry ; 
then to go less in quantity : as if one should T 
in forbearing wine, come from drinking healths 
to a draught at a meal ; and, lastly, to discon- 
tinue altogether : but if a man have the forti- 
tude and resolution to enfranchise himself at 
once, that is the best : 

" Optimus iile animi vindex, lscdantis pectus 
Vincula qui rupit, dedoluiique semel." 

Neither is the ancient rule amiss, to bend na- 
ture as a wand to a contrary extreme, whereby 
to set it right; understanding it where the 
contrary extreme is no vice. Let not a man 
force a habit upon himself with a perpetual 
continuance, but with some intermission ; for 
both the pause reenforceth the new onset : 
and, if a man that is not perfect be ever in 
practice, he shall as well practise his errors as 
his abilities, and induce one habit of both ; 
and there is no means to help this but by sea- 
sonable intermission : but let not a man trust 
his victory over his nature too far ; for nature 
will lie buried a great time, and yet revive 
upon the occasion, or temptation ; like as it 
was with JEsop's damsel, turned from a cat to 
a woman, who sat very demurely at the board's 
end till a mouse ran before her : therefore, let 
a man either avoid the occasion altogether, or 
put himself often to it, that he may be little 
moved with it. A man's nature is best per- 
ceived in privateness ; for there is no affecta 
tion in passion ; for that putteth a man out ^ 
13* 



150 OF CUSTOM AND EDUCATION. 

his precepts, and in a new case or experiment, 
Tor there custom leaveth him. They are hap- 
py men whose natures aort with their voca- 
tions; otherwise they may say, "multum 
incola fuit anima mea," when they con- 
verse in those things they do not affect. In 
6 tu dies, whatsoever a man commandeth upon 
iiimself, let him set hours for it ; but whatso- 
ever is agreeable to his nature, let him take no 
care for any set times ; for his thoughts will rly 
to it of themselves, so as the spaces of other 
business or studies will . suffice. A man's 
nature runs either to herbs or weeds : therefore, 
let him seasonably water the one, and destroy 
the other. 



OF CUSTOM AND EDUCATION. 

Men's thoughts are much according to 
their inclination ; their discourse and speeches 
according to their learning and infused opin- 
ions.; but their deeds are after as they have 
been accustomed : and, therefore, as Machi- 
avel well noteth, (though in an ill favoured 
instance,) there is no trusting to the force of 
nature, nor to the bravery of words, except it be 
corroborate by custom. His instance is that, 
for the achieving of a desperate conspiracy, a 
man should not rest upon the fierceness of any 
man's nature, or his resolute undertakings; 
but take such a one as hath bad his hands for- 
merly in blood but Machiavel knew not of a 



OF OttSTOM AND EDUCATION. 351 

friar Clement, nor a Ravillac, nor a Jaureguy, 
nor a Baltazar Gerard ; yet his rule holdeth 
«till, that nature, nor the engagement of words, 
are not so forcible as custom. Only supersti- 
tion is now so well advanced, that men of the 
first blood are as firm as butchers by occupa- 
tion ; and votary resolution is made equipol- 
lent to custom even in matter of blood. In 
other things, the predominancy of custom is 
every where visible, insomuch as a man 
would wonder to hear men profess, protest, 
engage, give great w T ords, and then do just as 
they have done before, as if they were dead 
images and engines, moved only by the wheels 
of custom. We see also the reign or tyranny 
of custom, what it is. The Indians (I mean 
the sect of their wise men) lay themselves 
quietly upon a stack of wood, and so sacrifice 
themselves by fire : nay, the wives strive to 
be burned with the corpse of their husbands 
The lads of Sparta, of ancient time, were 
wont to be scourged upon the altar of Diana, 
without so much as squeaking. I remember, 
in the beginning of queen Elizabeth's time of 
England, an Irish rebel, condemned, put up 
a petition to the deputy that he might be 
hanged in a withe, and not in a halter 
because it had been so used w r ith former 
rebels. There be monks in Russia, for pen- 
ance, that will sit a whole night in a vessel 
of water, till they be engaged with hard ice 
Many examples may be put of the force 
of custom, both upon mind and body : there 



152 OP CUSTOM AND EDUCATION. 

fore, since custom is the principal magis- 
trate of man's life, let men by all means 
endeavour to obtain good customs. Certainly, 
custom is most perfect when it beginneth in 
young years : this we call education, which 
is in effect but an early custom. So we 
see, in languages, the tone is more pliant 
to all expressions and sounds, the joints are 
more supple to all feats of activity and motions 
in youth, than afterwards ; for it is true, the 
late learners cannot so well take up the ply, 
except it be in some minds that have not suf- 
fered themselves to fix, but have kept them- 
selves opened and prepared to receive contin- 
ual amendment, which is exceeding rare : 
but if the force of custom, simple and sepa- 
rate, be great, the force of custom, copulate 
and conjoined and collegiate, is far greater ; 
for their example teacheth, company comfort- 
eth, emulation quickeneth, glory raiseth ; so 
as in such places the force of custom is in its 
exaltation. Certainly, the great multiplication 
of virtues upon human nature resteth upon 
societies well ordained and disciplined; for 
commonwealths and good governments do 
nourish virtue grown, but do not much mend 
the seeds : but the misery is, that the most 
effectual means are now applied to the ends 
least to be desired. 



OF FORTUNE. 153 



OF FORTUNE. 

It cannot be denied but outward accidents 
conduce much to fortune ; favour, opportunity, 
death of others, occasion fitting virtue : but, 
chiefly, the mould of a man's fortune is in his 
own hands : '' Faber quisque fortune suae," 
saith the poet ; and the most frequent of ex- 
ternal causes is, that the folly of one man is 
the fortune of another ; for no man prospers 
so suddenly as by others' errors ; u serpens 
nisi serpentem comederit non sit draco." 
Overt and apparent virtues bring forth praise ; 
but there be secret and hidden virtues that 
bring forth fortune ; certain deliveries of a 
man's self, which have no name. The Span- 
ish name, " disemboltura," partly expresseth 
them, when there be not stands nor restive- 
ness in a man's nature, but that the wheels of 
his mind keep way w T ith the w T heels of his 
fortune ; for so Livy (after he had described 
Cato Major in these words, u in illo viro, tan- 
tum robur corporis et animi fuit, ut quocunque 
loco natus esset, fortunam sibi facturus videre- 
tur,") falleth upon that he had, "versatile 
ingenium :" therefore, if a man look sharply 
and attentively, he shall see Fortune ; for 
though she be blind, yet she is not invisible. 
The w r ay of fortune is like the milky way in 
the sky ; which is a meeting, or knot of a 
number of small stars, not seen asunder, but 
giving light together : so are there a number 



154 OF FORTUNE. 

of little and scarce discerned virtues, or rathe* 
faculties and customs that make men fortunate 
the Italians note some of them, such as a man 
would little think. When they speak of one 
that cannot do amiss, they will throw it in'o 
his other conditions, that he hath " Poco di 
matto ;" and, certainly, there be not two more 
fortunate properties, than to have a little of 
the fool, and not too much of the honest : 
therefore extreme lovers of their country, or 
masters, were never fortunate : neither can 
they be ; for when a man placeth his thoughts 
without himself, he goeth not his own way. 
A hasty fortune maketh an enterpriser and 
remover ; (the French hath it better, " entre- 
prenant," or " remuant ;") but the exercised 
fortune maketh the able man. Fortune is to 
be honoured and respected, and it be but for 
her daughters, Confidence and Reputation ; 
for those two felicity breedeth ; the first within 
a man's self, the latter in others towards him. 
All wise men, to decline the envy of their 
own virtues, use to ascribe them to Provi- 
dence and Fortune ; for so they may the bet- 
ter assume them : and, besides, it is greatness 
in a man to be the care of the higher powers. 
So Caesar said to the pilot in the tempest, 
" Caesarem portas, et fortunam ejus." So Syl- 
la chose the name of " felix," and not of 
" magnus :" and it hath been noted, that those 
who ascribe openly too much to their own 
wisdom and policy, end unfortunate. It is 
written, that Timotheus, the Athenian, after 



OF USURY. 155 

iie had, in the account he gave to the state of 
his government, often interlaced this speech, 
" And in this fortune had no part," never pros- 
pered in any thing he undertook afterwards. 
Certainly there be whose fortunes are like 
Homer's verses, that have a slide and easi- 
ness more than the verses of other poets ; as 
Plutarch saith of Timoleon's fortune in respect 
of that of Agesilaus, or Epaminondas ; and 
that this should be, no doubt it is much in a 
man's self. 



OF USURY. 



Many have made witty invectives against 
usury. They say, that it is pity the devil 
should have God's part, which is the tithe ; 
that the usurer is the greatest sabbath breaker, 
because his plough goeth every Sunday ; that 
the usurer is the drone that Virgil speaketh of; 

" Ignavum fucoq pccus a praesepibus arcent ;" 

that the usurer breaketh the first law that was 
made for mankind after the fall, which w r as, " in 
sudore vultus tui comedes panem tuum ;" not 
" in sudore vultus alieni ;" that usurers should 
have orange-tawny bonnets, because they do 
Judaize ; that it is against nature for money to 
beget money, and the like. I say this only, 
that usury is a " concessum propter duritiem 
cordis *" for, since there must be borrowing 
ind ending, and men are so hard of heart as 
hey will d®£ lend freely, usury must be per- 



156 OF USURY. 

rnitted. Some others have made suspicious 
and cunning propositions of banks, discovery 
of men's estates, and other inventions ; but 
few have spoken of usury usefully. It is good 
to set before us the incommodities and com- 
modities of usury, that the good may be either 
weighed out, or culled out : and warily to 
provide; that, while we make forth to that 
which is better, we meet not with that which 
is w r orse. 

The discommodities of usury are, first, that 
it makes fewer merchants ; for, were it not for 
this lazy trade of usury, money would not lie 
still, but it would in great part be employed 
upon merchandising ; which is the " vena 
porta" of wealth in a state : the second, that 
it makes poor merchants ; for, as a farmer can- 
not husband his ground so well if he sit at a 
great rent, so the merchant cannot drive his 
trade so well if he sit at great usury : the 
third is incident to the other two ; and that is, 
the decay of customs of kings, or estates, 
which ebb or flow with merchandising : the 
fourth, that it bringeth the treasure of a realm or 
state into a few hands ; for the usurer being at 
certainties, and the other at uncertainties, at 
the end of the game most of the money will 
be in the box ; and ever a state flourisheth 
when w r ealth is more equalty spread : the 
fifth, that it beats down the price of land ; for 
the employment of money is chiefly either 
merchandising, or purchasing ; and usury way- 
lays both : the sixth, that it doth dull and 



OF USURY. 157 

damp all industries, improvements, and new 
inventions, wherein money would be stirring, 
if it were not for this slug : the last, that it is the 
canker and ruin of many men's estates, which 
in process of time breeds a pubh'c poverty. 

On the other side, the commodities of usury 
are, first, that howsoever usury in some respect 
hindereth merchandising, yet in some other it 
advanceth it ; for it is certain that the greatest 
part of trade is driven by young merchants 
upon borrowing at interest ; so as if the usurer 
either call in, or keep back his money, there 
will ensue presently a great stand of trade : 
the second is, that, were it not for this easy 
borrowing upon interest, men's necessities 
would draw upon them a most sudden undo- 
ing, in that they would be forced to sell their 
means (be it land or goods) far under foot, 
and so, whereas usury doth but gnaw upon 
them, bad markets would swallow them quite 
up. As for mortgaging, or pawning, it will 
little mend the matter : for either men will not 
take pains without use, or, if they do, they 
will look precisely for the forfeiture. I re- 
member a cruel monied man in the country, 
that would say, u The devil take this usury, 
it keeps us from forfeitures of mortgages and 
bonds." The third and last is, that it is a 
vanity to conceive that there would be ordi- 
nary borrowing without profit ; and it is im- 
possible to conceive the number of inconve- 
niences that will ensue, if borrowing be 
cramped : therefore to speak of the abolishin 
14 



158 OF USURY. 

of usury is idle ; all states have ever had it in 
one kind or rate, or other : so as that opinion 
must be sent to Utopia. 

To speak now of the reformation and regle- 
ment of usury, how the discommodities of it 
may be best avoided, and the commodities 
retained. It appears, by the balance of 
commodities and discommodities of usury, 
two things are to be reconciled ; the one that 
the tooth of usury be grinded, that it bite not 
too much; the other, that there be left open 
a means to invite monied men to lend to the 
merchants, for the continuing and quickening 
of trade. This cannot be done, except you 
introduce two several sorts of usury, a less 
and a greater ; for, if you reduce usury to one 
low rate, it will ease the common borrower, 
but the merchant will be to seek for money : 
and it is to be noted, that the trade of mer- 
chandise being the most lucrative, may bear 
usury at a good rate : other contracts not so. 

To serve both intentions, the way would be 
briefly thus : that there be two rates of usury ; 
the one free and general for all ; the other 
under license only to certain persons, and in 
certain places of merchandising. First, there- 
fore, let usury in general be reduced to five in 
the hundred ; and let that rate be proclaimed 
to be free and current ; and let the state shut 
itself out to take any penalty for the same : 
this will preserve borrowing from any general 
stop or dryness ; this will ease infinite bor- 
rowers in the country ; this will, in good part, 



OF USURY. 159 

raise the price of land, because land purchased 
at sixteen years' purchase will yield six m the 
hundred, and somewhat more, whereas this 
rate of interest yields but five ; this by like 
reason will encourage and edge industrious 
and profitable improvements, because many 
will rather venture in that kind, than take 
five in the hundred, especially having been 
used to greater profit. Secondly, let there be 
certain persons licensed to lend to known mer- 
chants upon usury, at a high rate, and lei it be 
with the cautions following : let the rate be, 
even with the merchant himself, somewhat 
more easy than that he used formerly to 
pay; for by that means all borrowers shall 
have some ease by this reformation, be he 
merchant or whosoever : let it be no bank, or 
common stock, but every man be master 
of his own money ; not that I altogether dis- 
like banks, but they will hardly be brooked, 
in regard of certain suspicions. Let the state 
be answered some small matter for the 
license, and the rest left to the lender ; for, 
if the abatement be but small, it will no 
whit discourage the lender; for he, for ex- 
ample, that took before ten or nine in the 
hundred, will sooner descend to eight in the 
hundred than give over this trade of usury, 
and go from certain gains to gains of hazard. 
Let these licensed lenders be in number inde- 
fini e, but restrained to certain principal cities 
and towns of merchandising ; for then they 
will be hardly able to colour other men's 



160 OF YOUTH AND AGE. 

moneys in the country : so as the license of 
nine will not suck away the current rate of 
five ; for no man will lend his moneys far off, 
nor put them into unknown hands. 

If it be objected, that this doth in a sort 
authorize usury, which before was in some 
places but permissive ; the answer is, that it 
is better to mitigate usury by declaration than 
to suffer it to rage by connivance. 



OF YOUTH AND AGE. 

A man that is young in years may be old in 
hours, if he have lost no time ; but that hap- 
peneth rarely. Generally, youth is like the 
first cogitations, not so wise as the second : 
for there is a youth in thoughts as well as in 
ages ; and yet the invention of young men is 
more lively than that of old, and imaginations 
stream into their minds better, and, as it were, 
more divinely. Natures that have much heat, 
and great and violent desires and perturbations, 
are not ripe for action till they have passed 
the meridian of their years : as it was with 
Julius Caesar and Septimius Severus : of the 
latter of whom it is said, "juventutem egit, 
erroribus, imo furoribus plenam :" and yet he 
was the ablest emperor, almost, of all the list : 
but reposed natures may do well in youth, as 
it is seen in Augustus Caesar, Cosmes, duke 
of Florence, Gaston de Fois, and others. On 
the other side, heat and vivacity in age is an 



OF YOUTH AND AGE. 161 

excellent composition for business. Young 
men are fitter to invent than to judge ; fitter 
for execution than for counsel ; and fitter for 
new projects than for settled business ; for the 
experience of age, in things that fall within 
the compass of it, directeth them ; but in new 
things abuseth them. The errors of young 
men are the ruin of business ; but the errors 
of aged men amount but to this, that more 
might have been done, or sooner. Young 
men, in the conduct and manage of actions, 
embrace more than they can hold ; stir more 
than they can quiet ; fly to the end, without 
consideration of the means and degrees ; pur- 
sue some few principles which they have 
chanced upon absurdly ; care not to innovate, 
which draws unknown inconveniences; use 
extreme remedies at first; and that, which 
doubleth all errors, will not acknowledge or 
retract them, like an unready horse, that will 
neither stop nor turn. Men of age object too 
much, consult too long, adventure too little, 
repent too soon, and seldom drive business 
home to the full period, but content themselves 
with a mediocrity of success. Certainly it is 
good to compound employments of both ; for 
that will be good for the present, because the 
virtues of either age may correct the defects 
of both ; and good for succession, that, young 
men may be learners, while men in age are 
actors ; and, lastly, good for external accidents, 
because authority followeth old men, and 
favour and popularity youth : but for the moral 
U 



162 OF BEAUTY. 

part, perhaps, youth will have the pre-emi 
nence, as age hath for the politic. A certain 
rabbin, upon the text, " Your young men 
shall see visions, and your old men shall 
dream dreams," inferreth that young men are 
admitted nearer to God than old, because 
vision is a clearer revelation than a dream : 
and, certainly, the more a man drinketh of the 
world, the more it intoxicateth : and age doth 
profit rather in the powers of understanding 
than in the virtues of the will and affections. 
There be some have an over-early ripeness in 
their years, which fadeth betimes : these are, 
first, such as have brittle wits, the edge whereof 
is soon turned : such as was Hermogenes the 
rhetorician, whose books are exceeding subtle, 
who afterwards waxed stupid : a second sort 
is of those that have some natural dispositions, 
which have better grace in youth than in age ; 
such as is a fluent and luxurious speech, 
which becomes youth well, but not age : so 
Tully saith of Hortensius, " idem manebat, 
neque idem decebat:" the third is of such as 
take too high a strain at the first, and are 
magnanimous more than tract of years can 
uphold ; as was Scipio Africanus, of whom 
Livy saith in effect, " ultima primis cedebant." 



OF BEAUTY. 



Virtue is like a rich stone, best plain set; 
and surely virtue is best in a body that is 



OF BEAUTY. 163 

comely, though not of delicate features ; and 
that hath rather dignity of presence than beau- 
ty of aspect ; neither is it almost seen, that 
very beautiful persons are otherwise of great 
virtue ; as if nature were rather busy not to 
err, than in labour to produce excellency ; and 
therefore they prove accomplished, but not of 
great spirit ; and study rather behaviour than 
virtue, But this holds not always : for Augus- 
tus Caesar, Titus Vespasianus, Philip le Belle 
of France, Edward the Fourth of England, 
Al-eibiades of Athens, Ismael the sophy of 
Persia, were all high and great spirits, and yet 
the most beautiful men of their times. In 
beauty, that of favour is more than that of 
colour ; and that of decent and gracious mo- 
tion more than that of favour. That is the 
best part of beauty which a picture cannot 
express ; no, nor the first sight of the life. 
There is no excellent beauty that hath not 
some strangeness in the proportion. A man 
cannot tell whether Apelles, or Albert Durer, 
were the more trifler ; whereof the one would 
make a personage by geometrical proportions : 
the other, by taking the best parts out of divers 
faces, to make one excellent. Such person- 
ages, I think, would please nobody but the 
painter that made them : not but I think a 
painter may make a better face than ever 
was ; but he must do it by a kind of felicity, 
(as a musician that maketh an excellent air in 
music,) and not by rule. A man shall see 
faces, that, if you examine them part by part, 



164 OF DEFORMITY, 

you shall find never a good ; and yet, altogether, 
do well. If it be true, that the principal part 
of beauty is in decent motion, certainly it is 
no marvel, though persons in years seem many 
times more amiable ; " pulchrorum autumnus 
pulcher ;" for no youth can be comely but by 
pardon, and considering the youth as to make 
up the comeliness, Beauty is as summer 
fruits, which are easy to corrupt, and cannot 
last ; and, for the most part, it makes a disso- 
lute youth, and an age a little out of counte- 
nance ; but yet certainly again, if it light well, 
it maketh virtues shine and vices blush. 



OF DEFORMITY. 

Deformed persons are commonly even with 
nature ; for, as nature hath done ill by them, 
so do they by nature, being for the most part 
(as the scripture saith) "void of natural 
affection :" and so they have their revenge of 
nature. Certainly there is a consent between 
the body and the mind, and where Nature 
erreth m the one, she ventureth in the other . 
il ubi peccat in uno, periclitatur in altero :" 
but because there is in man an election, 
touching the frame of his mind, and a neces- 
sity in the frame of his body, the stars of 
natural inclination are sometimes obscured by 
the sun of discipline and virtue ; therefore it 
is good to consider of deformity, not as a sign 
which is more deceivable, but as a cause 



OF DEFORMITY. 165 

which seldom faileth of the effect. Who- 
soever hath any thing fixed in his person 
that doth induce contempt, hath also a perpet- 
ual spur in himself to rescue and deliver him- 
self from scorn ; therefore, all deformed per 
sons are extreme bold ; first, as in their own 
defence, as being exposed to scorn, but in pro- 
cess of time by a general habit. Also it stir- 
re th in them industry, and especially of this 
kind, to watch and observe the weakness of 
others, that they may have somewhat to repay. 
Again, in their superiors, it quencheth jealousy 
towards them, as persons that they think they 
may at pleasure despise : and it layeth their 
competitors and emulators asleep, as never 
believing they should be in possibility of ad- 
vancement till they see them in possession : 
so that upon the matter, in a great wit, defor- 
mity is an advantage to rising. Kings, in an- 
cient times, (and at this present in some coun- 
tries,) were wont to put great trust in eunuchs, 
because they that are envious towards all are 
more obnoxious and officious towards one ; 
but yet their trust towards them hath rather 
been as to good spials, and good whisperers, 
than good magistrates and officers : and much 
like is the reason of deformed persons. Still 
the ground is, they will, if they be of spirit, 
seek to free themselves from scorn ; which 
must be either by virtue or malice ; and, 
therefore, let it not be marvelled, if sometimes 
they prove excellent persons ; as was Agesi- 
laus, Zanger the son of Solyman, ^sop, 



166 OF BUILDING. 

Gasca, president of Peru ; and Socrates may 
go likewise amongst them, with others. 



OF BUILDING. 

Houses are huilt to live in, and not to look 
on; therefore, let use be preferred before uni- 
formity, except where both may be had. 
Leave the goodly fabrics of houses, for beauty 
only, to the enchanted palaces of the poets, 
who build them with small cost. He that 
builds a fair house upon an ill seat committeth 
himself to prison ; neither do I reckon it an 
ill seat only where the air is unwholsome, but 
likewise where the air is unequal; as you 
shall see many fine seats set upon a knap of 
giound, environed with higher hills round 
about it, whereby the heat of the sun is pent 
in, and the wind gatliereth as in troughs ; so 
as you shall have, and that suddenly, as great 
diversity of heat and cold as if you dwelt in 
several places. Neither is it ill air only that 
maketh an ill seat ; but ill ways, ill markets ; 
and, if you consult with Momus, ill neighbours. 
I speak not of many more ; want of water, 
want of wood, shade, and shelter; want of 
fmitfulness, and mixture of grounds of several 
natures ; want of prospect, want of level 
grounds, want of places at some near distance 
for sports of hunting, hawking, and races ; too 
near the sea ; too remote ; having the com- 



OP BUILDING. 167 

modity of navigable rivers, or the discom- 
modity of their overflowing ; too far off from 
great cities, which may hinder business; or 
too near them, which lurcheth all provisions, 
and maketh every thing dear ; where a man 
hath a great living laid together, and where he 
is scanted ; all which, as it is impossible per- 
haps to find together, so it is good to know them, 
and think of them, that a man may take as many 
as he can ; and, if he have several dwellings, 
that he sort them so, that what he wanteth in 
the one, he may find in the other. Lucullus 
answered Pompey well, who, when he saw 
his stately galleries and rooms so Urge and 
lightsome, in one of his houses, said, u Surely 
an excellent place for summer, but how do 
you in winter ?" Lucullus answered, " Why, 
do you not think me as wise as some fools are, 
that ever change their abode towards the 
winter ?" 

To pass from the seat to the house itself, we 
will do as Cicero doth in the orator's art, who 
writes books De Oratore, and a book he enti- 
tles Orator; whereof the former delivers the 
precepts of the art, and the latter the perfec- 
tion. We will therefore describe a princely 
palace, making a brief model thereof ■ for it is 
strange to see, now, in Europe, such huge 
buildings as the Vatican and the Escurial, and 
some others be, and yet scarce a very fair 
room in them. 

First, therefore, I say, you cannot have a 
perfect palace, except you have two several 



168 OF BUILDING. 

sides ; a side for the banquet, as is spoken 
of in the book of Esther, and a side for the 
household ; the one for feasts and triumphs, 
and the other for dwelling. I understand 
both these sides to be not only returns, but 
parts of the front ; and to be uniform without, 
though severally partitioned within ; and to 
be on both sides of a great and stately tower 
in the midst of the front, that, as it were, join- 
eth them together on either hand. I would 
have, on the side of the banquet in front, 
one Gnly goodly room above stairs, of some 
forty foot high ; and under it a room for 
a dressing, or preparing place, at times of tri- 
umphs. On the other side, which is the 
household side, I wish it divided at the first 
into a hall and a chapel, (with a partition be- 
tween,) both of good state and bigness ; and 
those not to go all the length, but to have at 
the farther end a winter and a summer par- 
lour, both fair ; and under these rooms a fair 
and large cellar sunk under ground ; and like- 
wise some privy kitchens, with butteries and 
pantries, and the like. As for the tower, I 
would have it two stories, of eighteen foot 
high apiece above the two wings ; and goodly 
leads upon the top, railed with statues inter- 
posed ; and the same tower to be divided into 
rooms, as shall be thought fit. The stairs, 
likewise, to the upper rooms, let them be upon 
a fair and open newel, and finely railed in with 
images of wood cast into a brass colour ; and 
a very fair landing-place at the top. But this 



OF BUILDING. 169 

to be, if you do not point any of the lower 
rooms for a dining place of servants ; for, 
otherwise, you shall have the servants' dinner 
after your own : for the steam of it will come 
up as in a tunnel ; and so much for the front : 
only I understand the height of the first stairs 
to be sixteen foot, which is the height of the 
lower room. 

Beyond this front is there to be a fair court, 
but three sides of it of a far lower building than 
the front ; and in all the four corners of that 
court fail* staircases, cast into turrets on the out- 
side, and not within the row of buildings them- 
selves : but those towers are not to be of the 
height of the front, but rather proportionable to 
the lower building. Let the court not be pav- 
ed, for that striketh up a great heat in summer, 
and much cold in winter : but only some side 
alleys with a cross, and the quarters to graze, 
being kept shorn, but not too near shorn. The 
row of return on the banquet side, let it be 
all stately galleries : in which galleries let 
there be three or five fine cupolas in the length 
of it, placed at equal distance, and fine col- 
oured windows of several works : on the 
household side, chambers of presence and 
ordinary entertainments, with some bed-cham- 
bers : and let all three sides be a double 
house, without thorough lights on the sides, 
that you may have rooms from the sun, both 
for forenoon and afternoon. Cast it also, 
that you may have rooms both for summer 
and winter; shady for summer and warm 
15 



170 OF BUILDING. 

for winter. You shall have sometimes fair 
houses so full of glass, that one cannot tell 
where to become to be out of the sun or cold. 
For embowed windows, I hold them of good 
use ; (in cities, indeed, upright do better, in 
respect of uniformity towards the street;) for 
they be pretty retiring places for conference ; 
and, besides, they keep both the wind and sun 
off; for that which would strike almost 
through the room doth scarce pass the win- 
dow : but let them be but few, four in the 
court, on the sides only. 

Beyond this court, let there be an inward 
court, of the same square and height, which 
is to be environed with the garden on all 
sides ; and in the inside, cloistered on all 
sides upon decent and beautiful arches, as 
high as the first story : on the under story, 
towards the garden, let it be turned to a grotto, 
or place of shade, or estivation; and only 
have opening and windows towards the gar- 
den, and be level upon the floor, no whit sunk 
under ground, to avoid all dampishness : and let 
there be a fountain, or some fair work of stat- 
ues, in the midst of the court, and to be paved 
as the other court was. These buildings to be 
for privy lodgings on both sides, and the end 
for privy galleries : whereof you must foresee 
that one of them be for an infirmary, if the 
prince or any special person should be sick, 
with chambers, bed-chamber, " antecamera," 
and " recamera," joining to it : this upon the 
second story. Upon the ground story, a fair 



OF GARDENS. 171 

gallery, open, upon pillars ; and upon the 
third story likewise, an open gallery upon pil- 
lars, to take the prospect and freshness of the 
garden. At both corners of the farther side, 
by way of return, let there be two delicate or 
rich cabinets, daintily paved, richly hanged, 
glazed with crystalline glass, and a rich cupola 
in the midst ; and all other elegancy that may 
be thought upon. In the upper gallery too, I 
wish that there may be, if the place will yield 
it, some fountains running in divers places 
from the wall, with some fine avoidances. 
And thus much for the model of the palace ; 
save that you must have, before you c >me to 
the front, three courts ; a green court piain, 
with a wall about it ; a second com I of the 
same, but more garnished with little turrets, 
or rather embellishments, upon the wall ; and 
a third court, to make a square with the front, 
but not to be built, nor yet enclosed with a 
naked wall, but enclosed with terraces leaded 
aloft, and fairly garnished on the three sides ; 
and cloistered on the inside with pillars, ana 
not with arches below. As for offices, lcc 
them stand at distance, with some low galle- 
ries to pass from them to the palace itself. 



OF GARDENS. 



God Almighty first planted a garden ; and, 
indeed, it is the purest of human pleasures ; il 
is the greatest refreshment to the spirits of 



172 OF GARDENS. 

man; without which buildings and palaces 
are but gross handiworks : and a man shall 
ever see, that, when ages grow to civility and 
elegancy, men come to build stately, sooner 
than to garden finely ; as if gardening were 
the greater perfection. I do hold it ? in the 
royal ordering of gardens, there ought to be 
gardens for all the months in the year, in 
which, severally, things of beauty may be 
then in season. For December and January, 
and the latter part of November, you must 
take such things as are green all winter ; holly, 
ivy, bays, juniper, cypress trees, yew, pines, 
fir trees, rosemary, lavender; periwinkle, the 
white, the purple, and the blue ; germander, 
flag, orange trees, lemon trees, and myrtles, if 
they be stoved ; and sweet marjoram, warm 
set. There followeth, for the latter part of 
January and February, the mezeron tree, 
which then blossoms ; crocus vermis, both the 
yellow and the gray ; primroses, anemones, 
the early tulip, the hyacinthus, orientalis, 
chamairis fritellaria. For March there come 
violets, especially the single blue, which are 
the earliest ; the early daffodil, the daisy, the 
almond tree in blossom, the peach tree in blos- 
som, the cornelian tree in blossom, sweetbriar. 
[n April follow the double white violet, the 
wallflower, the stock gilMower, the cowslip, 
flower-de-luces, and lilies of all natures ; 
rosemary flowers, the tulip, the double peony, 
the pale daffodil, the French honey-suckle, 
the cherry tree in blossom, the damascene and 



OF GARDENS. 173 

plum trees in blossom, the white thorn in leaf, 
the lilach tree. In May and June come pinks 
of all sorts, especially the blush pink; roses 
of all kinds, except the musk, which comes 
later; honey-suckles, strawberries, bugloss, 
columbine, the French marigold, flos Africa- 
nus, cherry tree in fruit, ribes, figs in fruit, 
rasps, vine-flowers, lavender in flowers, the 
sweet satyrian, with the white flower ; herba 
muscaria lilium convallium, the apple tree in 
blossom. In July come gilliflowers of all 
varieties, musk-roses, the lime tree in blossom, 
early pears, and plums in fruit, gennitings, 
codlins. In August come plums of all sorts 
in fruit, pears, apricots, berberries, filberds, 
musk-mellons, monks-hoods of all colours. 
In September come grapes, apples, poppies of 
all colours, peaches, melocotones, nectarines, 
cornelians, wardens, quinces. In October and 
the beginning of November come services, 
medlars, bull aces, roses cut or removed to 
come late, hollyoaks, and such like. These 
particulars are for the climate of London : but 
my meaning is perceived, that you may have 
" ver perpetuum," as the place affords. 

And because the breath of flowers is far 
sweeter in the air, where it comes and goes, 
(like the warbling of music,) than in the 
hand, therefore nothing is more fit for that 
delight than to know what be the flowers and 
plants that do best perfume the air. Roses, 
damask and red, are fast flowers of their 
smells ; so that you may walk by a whole row 
15 • 



174 OF GARDENS. 

of them, and find nothing of their sweetness ; 
yea, though it be in a morning's dew. Bays, 
likewise, yield no smell as they grow, rose- 
mary little, nor sweet marjoram ; that which, 
above all others, yields the sweetest smell in 
the airj is the violet, especially the white 
double violet, which comes twice a year, about 
the middle of April, and about Bartholomew- 
tide. Next to that is the musk-rose ; then the 
strawberry leaves dying, with a most excellent 
cordial smell ; then the flower of the vines, it is 
a little dust like the dust of a bent, which grows 
upon the cluster in the first coming forth ; then 
sweetbriars, then wallflowers, which are very 
delightful to be set under a parlour or lower 
chamber window ; then pinks and giJliflowers, 
especially the matted pink and clove-gilli- 
flower ; then the flowers of the lime tree ; 
then the honey-suckles, so they be somewhat 
afar off. Of bean-flowers I speak not, be- 
cause they are field flowers ; but those which 
perfume the air most delightfully, not passed by 
as the rest, but being trodden upon and crush- 
ed, are three; that is, burnet, wild thyme, 
and watermints ; therefore, you are to set 
whole alleys of them, to have the pleasure 
when you walk or tread. 

For gardens, (speaking of those which are, 
indeed, princelike, as we have done of build- 
ings,) the contents ought not well to be under 
thirty acres of ground, and to be divided into 
three parts ; a green in the entrance, a heath 
or desert in the going forth, and the main gar- 



OF GARDENS. 17.5 

den in the midst, besides alleys on both side^ ; 
and I like well that four acres of ground be 
assigned to the green, six to the heath, four 
and four to either side, and twelve to the main 
garden. The green hath two pleasures : the 
one, because nothing is more pleasant to the 
eye than green grass kept finely shorn ; the 
other, because it will give you a fair alley in 
the midst, by which you may go in front upon 
a stately hedge, which is to enclose the gar- 
den ; but because the alley will be long, and, 
in great heat of the year, or day, you ought 
net to buy the shade in the garden by going 
in the sun through the green ; therefore you 
are, of either side the green, to plant a covert 
alley, upon carpenter's work, about twelve 
foot in height, by which you may go in shade 
into the garden. As for the making of knots, 
or figures, with divers coloured earths, that 
they may lie under the windows of the house 
on that side on which the garden stands, they 
be but toys : you may see as good sights many 
times in tarts. The garden is best to be 
square, encompassed on all the four sides with 
a stately arched hedge ; the arches to be upon 
pillars of carpenter's work, of some ten foot 
high, and six foot broad, and the spaces between 
of the same dimensions with the breadth of the 
arch. Over the arches let there be an entire 
hedge of some four foot high, framed also upon 
carpenter's work ; and upon the other hedge 
over every arch, a little turnet, with a belly 
enough to receive a cage of birds : and ovei 



176 OF GARDENS. 

every space between the arches some othei 
little figure, with broad plates of round col- 
oured glass gilt for the sun to play upon : but 
this hedge I intend to be raised upon a bank, 
not steep, but gently slope, of some six foot, 
set all with flowers. Also I understand, that 
this square of the garden should not be the 
whole breadth of the ground, but to leave on 
either side ground enough for diversity of side 
alleys, unto which the two covert alleys of 
the green may deliver you ; but there must be 
no alleys with hedges at either end of this 
great enclosure ; not at the hither end, for let- 
ting your prospect upon this fair hedge from 
the green ; nor at the farther end, for letting 
your prospect from the hedge through the 
arches upon the heath. 

For the ordering of the ground within the 
gieat hedge, I leave it to variety of device; 
advising, nevertheless, that whatsoever form 
you cast it into first, it be not too busy or full 
of work ; wherein I, for my part, do not like 
images cut out in juniper or other garden stuff, 
they be for children. Little low hedges, like 
round welts, with some pretty pyramids, I like 
well ; and in some places fair columns, upon 
frames of carpenter's work. I would also 
have the alleys spacious and fair. You may 
have closer alleys upon the side grounds, but 
none in the main garden. I wish also, in the 
very middle, a fair mount, with three ascents 
and alleys, enough for four to walk abreast 
which I would have to be perfect circle* 



OF GARDENS. 177 

without any bulwarks or embossments ; and 
the whole mount to be thirty feet high, and 
some fine banqueting house, with some chim- 
neys neatly cast, and without too much glass. 
For fountains, they are a great beauty and 
refreshment ; but pools mar all, and make the 
garden unwhoisome, and full of flies and frogs. 
Fountains I intend to be of two natures ; the 
one that sprinkleth or spouteth water ; the 
other a fair receipt of water, of some thirty or 
forty feet square, but without fish, or slims, 01 
mud. For the first, the ornaments of images, 
gilt or of marble, which are in use, do well : 
but the main matter is so to convey the 
water, as it never stay, either in the bowls 
or in the cistern : that the water be never 
by rest discoloured, green or red, or the 
like, or gather any mossiness or putrefac- 
tion ; besides that, it is to be cleansed every 
day by the hand : also some steps up to it. 
and some fine pavement about it do well. As 
for the other kind of fountain, which we may 
call a bathing pool, it may admit much curios- 
ity and beauty, wherewith we will not trouble 
ourselves : as, that the bottom be finely paved, 
and with images; the sides likewise; and 
withal embellished with coloured glass, and 
such things of lustre ; encompassed also with 
fine rails of low statues : but the main point 
is the same which we mentioned in the for- 
mer kind of fountain ; which is, that the water 
bs in perpetual motion, fed by a water higher 
V 



178 OF GARDENS, 

than the pool, and delivered into it by fair 
spouts, and then discharged away under 
ground, by some equality of bores, that it stay 
little ; and for fine devices, of arching water 
without spilling, and making it rise in several 
forms, (of feathers, drinking glasses, canopies, 
and the like,) they be pretty things to look 
on, but nothing to health and sweetness. 

For the heath, which was the third part of 
our plot, I wished it to be framed as much as 
may be to a natural wildness. Trees, I would 
have none in it, but some thickets made only 
of sweetbriar and honey-suckle, and some 
wild vine amongst ; and the ground set with 
violets, strawberries, and primroses; for 
these are sweet, and prosper in the shade ; 
and these are to be in the heath here and 
there, not in any order. I like also little 
heaps, in the nature of mole-hiils, (^such as 
are in wild heaths,) to be set, some with wild 
thyme, some with pinks, some with german- 
der, that gives a good flower to the eye ; some 
with periwinkle, some with violets, some with 
strawberries, some with cowslips, some with 
daisies, some with red roses, some with lilium 
convallium, some with sweet-williams red, seme 
with bear's-foot, and the like low flowers, 
being withal sweet and sightly: part of 
which heaps to be with standaids of little 
bushes pricked upon their top, and part 
without: the standards to be roses, juniper, 
holly, berberries, (but here and there because 



OF GARDENS. 179 

of the smell of their blossoms,) red currants, 
gooseberries, rosemary, bays, sweetbriar, and 
such like ; but these standards to be kept with 
cutting, that they grow not out of course. 

For the side grounds, you are to fill them 
with variety of alleys, private, to give a full 
shade ; some of them wheresoever the sun 
be. You are to frame some uf them likewise 
for shelter, that, when the wind blows sharp, 
you may walk as in a gallery : and those 
alleys must be likewise hedged at both ends 
to keep out the wind ; and these closer alleys 
must be ever finely gravelled, and no grass, be- 
cause of going wet. In many of these alleys, 
likewise, you are to set fruit-trees of all sorts, 
as well upon the walls as in ranges ; and this 
should be generally observed, that the borders 
wherein you plant your fruit-trees be fair, and 
large, and low, and not steep ; and set with 
fine flowers, but thin and sparingly, lest they 
deceive the trees. At the end of both the 
side grounds I would have a mount of some 
pretty height, leaving the wall of the enclo- 
sure breast-high, to look abroad into the fields. 

For the main garden, I do not deny but 
there should be some fair alleys ranged on 
both sides, with fruit-trees, and some pretty 
tufts of fruit-trees, and arbours with seats, set 
in some decent order ; but these to be by no 
means set too thick, but to leave the main gar- 
den so as it be not close, but the air open and 
free. For as for shade, I would have you rest 
upon the alleys of the side grounds, the r e 



180 OF NEGOTIATING. 

to walk, if you be disposed, in the heat of 
the year or day ; but to make account that the 
main garden is for the more temperate parts 
of the year, and, in the heat of summer, for 
the morning and the evening, or overcast 
days. 

For aviaries, I like them not, except they 
be of that largeness as they may be turfed, 
and have living plants and bushes set in them ; 
that the birds may have more scope and natu- 
ral nestling, and that no foulness appear on 
the floor of the aviary. 

So I have made a platform of a princely 
garden, partly by precept, partly by drawing ; 
not a model, but some general lines of it ; and 
in this I have spared for no cost : but it 
is nothing for great princes, that, for the most 
part taking advice with workmen, with no 
less cost set their things together ; and some- 
times add statues, and such things, for state 
and magnificence, but nothing to the true 
pleasure of a garden. 



OF NEGOTIATING. 

It is generally better to deal by speech than 
by letter; and by the mediation of a third 
than by a man's self. Letters are good, when 
a man would draw an answer by letter back 
again ; or when it may serve for a man's jus- 
tification afterwards to produce his own letter ; 
or where it may be in danger L .o >e interrupted 



OF NEGOTIATING. 1S1 

or heard by pieces. To deal in person is 
good, when a man's face breedeth regard, as 
commonly with inferiors ; or in tender cases, 
where a man's eye upon the countenance of 
him with whom he speaketh, may give him a 
direction how far to go ; and, generally, where 
a man will reserve to himself liberty, either 
to disavow or expound. In choice of instru- 
ments, it is better to choose men of a plainer 
sort, that are like to do that that is committed 
to them, and to report back again faithfully 
the success, than those that are cunning to 
contrive out of other men's business some- 
what to grace themselves, and will help the 
matter in report, for satisfaction sake. Use 
also such persons as effect the business where- 
in they are employed, for that quiekeneth 
much ; and such as are fit for the matter, as 
bold men for expostulation, fair-spoken men 
for persuasion, crafty men for inquiry ana ob- 
servation, froward and absurd men for busi- 
ness that doth not well bear out itself. Use 
also such as have been lucky, and prevailed 
before in things wherein you have employed 
them ; for that breeds confidence, and they 
will strive to maintain their prescription. It 
is better to sound a person w : th whom one 
deals afar off, than to fall upon the point at 
first; except you mean to surprise him by 
some short question. It is better dealing with 
men in appetite, than with those that are where 
they would be. If a man dual with another 
upon conditions, the start of first performance is 
16 



182 OF FOLLOWERS AND FRIENDS. 

all : which a man cannot reasonably demand, 
except either the nature of the thing be such 
which must go before; or else a man can 
persuade the other party, that he shall still 
need him in some other thing ; or else that he 
be counted the honester man. All practice is 
to discover, or to work. Men discover them- 
selves in trust,- in passion, at unawares ; and 
of necessity, when they would have somewhat 
done, and cannot find an apt pretext. If you 
would work any man, you must either know 
his nature or fashions, and so lead him ; or his 
ends, and so persuade him ; cr his weakness 
and disadvantages, and so awe him ; or those 
that have interest in him, and so govern him. 
In dealing with cunning persons, we must 
ever consider their ends to interpret their 
speeches ; and it is good to say little to them, 
and that which they least look for. In all ne- 
gotiations of difficulty, a man may not look to 
sow and reap at once ; but must prepare busi- 
ness, and so ripen it by degrees. 



OF FOLLOWERS AND FRIENDS. 

Costly followers are not to be liked ; lest, 
while a man maketh his train longer, he make 
his wings shorter. I reckon to be costly, not 
them alone which charge the purse, but which 
are wearisome and importune in suits. Ordi- 
nary followers ought to challenge no higher 
conditions than countenance, recommendation, 



OP FOLLOWERS AND FRIENDS. 183 

and protection from wrongs. Factious fol- 
lowers are worse to be liked, which follow 
not upon affection to him, with whom they 
range themselves, but upon discontentment 
conceived against some other; whereupon 
commonly ensueth that ill intelligence that we 
many times see between great personages. 
Likewise glorious followers, who make them- 
selves as trumpets of the commendation of 
those they follow, are full of inconvenience, 
for they taint business through want of secre- 
cy ; and they export honour from a man, and 
make him a return in envy. There is a kind 
of followers, likewise, which are dangerous, 
being indeed espials ; which inquire the 
secrets of the house, and bear tales of them 
to others ; yet such men, many times, are in 
great favour ; for they are officious, and com- 
monly exchange tales. The following by 
certain estates of men, answerable to that 
which a great man himself professeth, (as of 
soldiers to him that hath been employed in the 
wars, and the like,) hath ever been a thing 
civil, and well taken even in monarchies, so it 
be without too much pomp or popularity : but 
the most honourable kind of following is, to 
be followed as one that apprehendeth to ad- 
vance virtue and desert in all sorts of persons ; 
and yet, where there is no eminent odds in 
sufficiency, it is better to take with the more 
passable than with the more able ; and, be- 
sides, to speak truth in base times, active men 
are of more use than virtuous. It is true, 



184 OF FOLLOWERS AND FRIENDS. 

that in government, it is good to use men of 
one rank equally: for to countenance some 
extraordinarily, is to make them insolent, and 
the rest discontent ; because they may claim 
a due : but contrariwise in favour, to use men 
with much difference and election is good ; 
for it maketh the person preferred more thank- 
ful, and the rest more officious ; because all is 
of favour. It is good discretion net to make 
too much of any man at the first ; because one 
cannot hold out that proportion. To be gov- 
erned (as we call it) by one is not safe ; for 
it shows softness, and gives a freedom to 
scandal and disreputation ; for those that 
would not censure, or speak ill of a man im- 
mediately, will talk more boldly of those that 
are so great with them, and thereby wound 
their honour ; yet to be distracted with many 
is worse; for it makes men to be of the last 
impression, and full of change. To take 
advice of some few friends is ever honoura- 
ble ; for lookers-en many times see more than 
gamesters ; and the vale best discovereth the 
hill. There is little friendship in the world, 
and least of all between equals, which was 
wont to be magnified. That that is, is be- 
tween superior and inferior, whose fortunes 
may comprehend the one the other. 



OF SUITORS. 185 



OF SUITORS. 



Many ill matters and projects are under- 
taken ; and private suits do putrefy the public 
good. Many good matters are undertaken 
with bad minds ; I mean not only corrupt 
minds, but crafty minds, that intend not per- 
formance. Some embrace suits which never 
mean to deal effectually in them'; but if tlrey 
see there may be life in the matter, by sotie 
other mean, they will be content to win a 
thank, or take a second reward, or, at least, 
to make use in the mean time of the suitor's 
hopes. Some take hold of suits only for an 
occasion to cross some other, or to make an 
information, whereof they could not otherwise 
have apt pretext, without care what become 
of the suit when the turn is served ; or, gen- 
erally, to make other men's business a kind 
of entertainment to bring in their own : nay, 
some undertake suits with a full purpose to let 
them fall ; to the end to gratify the adverse 
party or competitor. Surely there is in some 
sort a right in every suit ; either a right of 
equity, if it be a suit of controversy; or a 
right of desert, if it be a suit of petition. If 
affection lead a man to favour the wrong side 
in justice, let him rather use his countenance 
to compound the matter thar to carry it, If 
affection lead a man to favour he less worthy in 
desert, let him do it wilhouf depraving or dis- 
abling the better dese/ ? ir. In suits which & 
16 * 



186 OF SUITORS. 

man doth not well understand, it is good to 
refer them to some friend of* trust and judg- 
ment, that may report whether he may deal 
in them with honour : but let him choose 
well his referendaries, for else he may be led 
by the nose. Suitors are so distasted with 
delays and abuses, that plain dealing in deny- 
ing to deal in suits at first, ard reporting the 
success barely, and in challenging no more 
thanks than one hath deserved, is grown not 
only honourable, but also gracious. In suits 
of favour, the first coming ought to take little 
place ; so far forth consideration may be had 
of his trust, that if intelligence of the mattei 
could not otherwise have been had but by him, 
advantage be not taken of the note, but the 
party left to his other means ; and in some 
sort recompensed for his discovery. To be 
ignorant of the value of a suit is simplicity ; 
as well to be ignorant of the right thereof is 
want of conscience. Secrecy in suits is a 
great mean of obtaining ; for voicing them to 
be in forwardness may discourage some kind of 
suitors ; but doth quicken and awake others ; 
but timing of the suit is the principle ; timing, 
I say, not only in respect of the person who 
should grant it, but in respect of those which 
are like to cross it. Let a man, in the choice 
of his mean, rather choose the fittest mean 
than the greatest mean ; and rather them 
that deal in certain things than those that are 
general. The reparation of a denial is some- 
times equal to the first grant, if a man show 



OF STUDIES. 187 

himself neither dejected nor discontented. 
i; Iniquum petas, nt aequum feras," is a good 
rule, where a man hath strength of favour : 
but otherwise, a man were better rise in his 
suit ; for he that would have ventured at first 
to have lost the suitor, will not, in the conclu- 
sion, lose both the suitor and his own former 
favour. Nothing is thought so easy a request 
to a great person as his letter ; and yet, if it be 
not in a good cause, it is so much out of his 
reputation. There are no worse instruments 
than these general contrivers of suits ; for 
they are but a kind of poison and infection to 
public proceeding. 



OF STUDIES. 



Studies serve for delight, for ornament, and 
for ability. Their chief use for delight is in 
privateness and retiring ; for ornament, is in 
discourse ; and for ability, is in the judg- 
ment and disposition of business ; for expert 
men can execute, and perhaps judge of pai- 
ticulars one by one : but the general counsels, 
and the plots and marshalling of affairs, come 
best fioin those that are learned. To spend 
too much time in studies is sloth ; to use them 
too much for ornament is affectation ; to make 
judgment wholly by their rules is the humour 
of a scholar : they perfect nature, and are 
perfected by experience : for natural abilities* 
are like natural plants, that need pruning by 



188 OP STUDIES. 

study ; and studies themselves do give forth 
directions too much at large, except they be 
bounded in by experience. Crafty men con- 
temn studies, simple men admire, and wise 
men use them ; for they teach not their own 
use ; but that is a wisdom without them, and 
above them, won by observation. Read not 
to contradict and confute, nor to believe and 
take for granted, nor to find talk and discourse, 
but to weigh and consider. Some books are 
to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some 
few to be chewed and digested ; that is, some 
books are to be read only in parts ; others to 
be read, but not curiously ; and some few to 
be read wholly, and with diligence and atten 
tion. Some books also may be read by dep- 
uty, and extracts made of them by others; 
but that would be only in the less important 
arguments, and the meaner sort of books ; 
else distilled books are, like common distilled 
waters, flashy things. Reading maketh a full 
man ; conference a ready man ; and writing an 
exact man ; and, therefore, if a man write lit- 
tte, he had need have a great memory : if he 
confer little, he had need have a present wit : 
and if he read little, he had need have much 
cunning, to seem to know that he doth not. 
Histories make men wise ; poets witty ; the 
mathematics subtile ; natural philosophy deep ; 
moral, grave ; logic and rhetoric, able to con- 
tend ; " Abeunt studia in mores ;" nay, there 
ik no stand or impediment in the wit, but may 
be wrought out by fit studies : like as diseases 



OF PACTION. 189 

of the body may have appropriate exercises ; 
bowling is good for the stone and reins, shoot- 
ing for the lungs and breast, gentle walking 
for the stomach., riding for the head, and the 
like ; so, if a man's wits be wandering, let 
him study the mathematics, for in demonstra- 
tions, if his wit be called away never so little, 
he must begin again ; if his wit be not apt to 
distinguish or find differences, let him study 
the schoolmen, for they are u Cymini sec- 
tores;" if he be not apt to beat over matters, 
' and to call upon one thing to prove and illus- 
trate another, let him study the lawyers- cases ; 
so every delect of the mind may have a spe- 
cial receipt. 

OF FACTION. 

Many have an opinion not wise, that for a 
prince to govern his estate, or for a great per- 
son to govern his proceedings, according to 
the respect to factions, is a principal part of 
policy ; whereas, contrariwise, the chiefest 
wisdom is, either in ordering those things 
which are general, and wherein men of several 
factions do nevertheless agree, or in dealing 
with correspondence to particular persons, one 
by one : but I say not, that the consideration 
of factions is to be neglected. Mean men, in 
their rising, must adhere ; but great men, that 
have strength in themselves, were better to 
maintain themselves indifferent and neutral : 
yet even in beginners, to adhere so moderately, 



190 OF FACTION. 

as he be a man of the one faction, which is 
most pa-ssable with the other, commonly giveth 
best way. The lower and weaker faction is 
the firmer in conjunction ; and it is often seen 
that a few that are stiff do tire out a greater 
number that are more moderate. When one 
of the factions is extinguished, the remaining 
subdivideth ; as the faction between Lucullus 
and the rest of the nobles of the senate 
(which they called " optimates") held out 
awhile against the faction of Pompey and 
Csesar ; but when the senate's authority was 
pulled down, Csesar and Pompey soon after 
brake. The faction or party of Antonius and 
Octavianus Caesar, against Brutus and Cassius, 
held out likewise for a time ; but when Brutus 
and Cassius were overthrown, then soon after 
Antonius and Octavianus brake and subdivided. 
These examples are of wars, but the same 
holdeth in private factions : and, therefore, 
those that are seconds in factions, do many 
times, when the faction subdivideth, prove 
principals ; but many times also they prove 
ciphers and cashiered ; for many a man's 
strength is in opposition ; and when that fail- 
eth, he groweth out of use. It is commonly 
seen that men once placed, take in with the 
contrary faction to that by which they enter 
thinking, belike, that they have their first sure, 
and now are ready for a new purchase. The 
traitor in faction lightly goeth away with it, for 
when matters have stuck long in balancing, 
the winning of some one man casteth them, 



OF CEREMONIES AND RESPECTS. 191 

and he gettetli all the thanks. The even car- 
riage between two factions proceedeth not 
always of moderation, but of a trueness to a 
man's self, with end to make use of both. 
Certainly, in Italy, they hold it a little suspect 
in popes, when they have often in their mouth 
" Padre commune :" and take it to be a sign 
of one that meaneth to refer all to the great- 
ness of his own house. Kings had need be- 
ware how they side themselves, and make 
themselves as of a faction or party ; for leagues 
within the state are ever pernicious to monar- 
chies ; for they raise an obligation paramount 
to obligation of sovereignty, and make the 
king " tanquam unus ex nobis ;" as was to be 
seen in the league of France. When factions 
are carried too high and too violently, it is a 
sign of weakness in princes, and much to the 
prejudice both of their authority and business. 
The motions of factions under kings ought to 
be like the motions (as the astronomers speak) 
of the inferior orbs, which may have their 
proper motions, but yet still are quietly carried 
by the higher motion of "primum mobile." 



OF CEREMONIES AND RESPECTS. 

He that is only real had need have exceed- 
ing great parts of virtue ; as the stone had 
need to be rich that is set without foil : but if 
a man mark it well, it Is in praise and commen- 
dation of men, as it is in gettings and gains ■ 



192 OF CEREMONIES AND RESPECTS. 

for the proverb is true, " that light gains make 
heavy purses ;" for light gains come thick, 
whereas great come but now and then : so it 
is true, that small matters win great commen- 
dation, because they are continually in use and 
in note : whereas the occasion of any great 
virtue cometh but on festivals : therefore it 
doth much add to a man's reputation, and is 
(as queen Isabella said) like perpetual letters 
commendatory, to have good forms : to attain 
them, it almost sufficeth not to despise them ; 
for so shall a man observe them in others ; and 
let him trust himself with the rest ; for if he 
labour too much to express them, he shall lose 
their grace ; which is to be natural and unaf- 
fected. Some men's behaviour is like a verse, 
wherein every syllable is measured ; how can 
a man comprehend great matters that breaketb 
his mind too much to small observations ? 
Not to use ceremonies at all, is to teach oth- 
ers not to use them again ; and so diminisheth 
respect to himself; especially they are not to 
be omitted to strangers and formal natures : 
but the dwelling upon them, and exalting them 
above the moon, is not only tedious, but doth 
diminish the faith and credit of him that 
speaks : and, certainly, there is a kind of con- 
veying of effectual and imprinting passages 
amongst compliments, which is of singular 
use 9 if a man can hit upon it. Amongst a 
man's peers, a man shall be sure of familiarity ; 
and therefore it is good a little to keep state : 
amongst a man's inferiors, one shall be sure 






OF PRAISE. 193 

of reverence ; and therefore it is good a little 
to be familiar. He that is too much in any 
thing, so that he giveth another occasion of 
society, maketh himself cheap. To apply 
one's self to others is good ; so it be with demon- 
stration, that a man doth it upon regard, ana 
not upon facility. It is a good precept, gener- 
ally, in seconding another, yet to add some- 
what of one's own : as if you will grant his 
opinion, let it be with some distinction ; if 
you will follow his motion, let it be with con- 
dition ; if you allow his counsel, let it be wit' 
alleging farther reason. Men had need be- 
ware how they be too. perfect in compliments ; 
for, be they never so sufficient otherwise, their 
enviers will be sure to give them that attribute, 
to the disadvantage of their greater virtues. 
It is loss also in business to be too full of re- 
spects, or to be too curious in observing times 
and opportunities. Solomon saith, " He that 
considereth the wind shall not sow, and he 
that looketh to the clouds shall not reap." A 
wise man will make more opportunities than 
he finds. Men's behaviour should be like 
their apparel, not too strait or point device, but 
free for exercise or motion. 



OF FRAISE. 

Praise is the reflection of virtue, but it is 
as the glass, or body which giveth the reflec 
W 



194 OF PRAISE. 

tion ; if it be from the common people, it is 
commonly false and nought ; and rather fol- 
loweth vain persons than virtuous : for the 
common people understand not many excel- 
lent virtues : the lowest virtues draw praise 
from them, the middle virtues work in them 
astonishment or admiration ; but of the high- 
est virtues they have no sense or perceiving 
at all; but shows and "species virtutibus 
similes" serve best with them. Certainly, 
fame is like a river, that beareth up things 
light and swollen, and drowns things weighty 
and solid ; but if persons of quality and judg- 
ment concur, then it is, (as the scripture saith,) 
" Nomen bonum instar unguenti fragrantis;" 
it filleth all round about, and will not easily 
away ; for the odours of ointments are more 
durable than those of flowers. There be so 
many false points of praise, that a man may 
justly hold it in suspect. Some praises pro- 
ceed merely of flattery ; and if he be an ordi- 
nary flatterer, he will have certain common 
attributes, which may serve every man ; if he 
be a cunning flatterer, he will follow the arch 
flatterer, which is a man's self, and wherein a 
man thinketh best of himself, therein the flat- 
terer will uphold him most ; but if he be an 
impudent flatterer, look wherein a man is con- 
scious to himself that he is most defective, and 
is most out of countenance in himself, that 
will the flatterer entitle him to perforce, 
" Spreta conscientia." Some praises come of 



OF TRAISE. 195 

good wishes and respects, which is a form due 
in civility to kings and great persons, 4S lau- 
dando praecipere ;" when, by telling men what 
they are, they represent to them what they 
should be : some men are praised maliciously 
to their hurt, thereby to stir envy and jealousy 
towards them ; " pessimum genus inimicorum 
laudantium ;" insomuch as it was a proverb 
amongst the Grecians, that " he that was 
praised to his hurt should have a push rise 
upon his nose ;" as we say, that a blister will 
rise upon one's tongue that tells a lie ; cer- 
tainly, moderate praise, used with opportunity, 
and not vulgar, is that which doth the good. 
Solomon saith, " He that praiseth his friend 
aloud, rising early, it shall be to him no better 
than a curse." Too much magnifying of 
man or matter doth irritate contradiction, and 
procure envy and scorn. To praise a man's 
self cannot be decent, except it be in rare 
cases ; but to praise a man's office or profes 
sion, he may do it with good grace, and with 
a kind of magnanimity. The cardinals of 
Rome, which are theologues, and friars, and 
schoolmen, have a phrase of notable contempt 
and scorn towards civil business ; for they call 
all temporal business of wars, embassages, 
judicature, and other employments, sherrerie, 
which is under sherifferies, as if they were but 
matters for under sheriffs and catchpoles ; 
though many times those under sherifTeries do 
more good than their high speculations. St 



196 OF VAINGLORY. 

Paul, when he boasts of himself, doth oft 
interlace, " I speak like a fool;" but, speaking 
of his calling, he saith, " magnificabo aposto- 
latum meum." 



OF VAINGLORY. 

It was prettily devised of iEsop, the fly sat 
upon the axie+ree of the chariot wheel, and 
said, " What a dust do I raise !" So are there 
some vain persons, that, whatsoever goeth 
alone, or moveth upon greater means, if they 
have never so little hand in it, they think it is 
they that carry it. They that are glorious 
must needs be factious ; for all bravery stands 
upon comparisons. They must needs be vio- 
lent to make good their own vaunts ; neither 
can they be secret, and therefore not effectual ; 
but, according to the French proverb, " beau- 
coup de bruits pen de fruit ;"- — " much bruit, 
little fruit." Yet, certainly, there is use of this 
qnality in civil affairs : where there is an 
opinion and fame to be created, either of virtue 
or greatness, these men are good trumpeters. 
Asgain, as Titus Livius noteth, in the case of 
Antiochus and the iEtolians, there are some- 
times great effects of cross lies : as if a man 
that negotiates between two princes, to draw 
them to join in a war against a third, doth extol 
the forces of either of them above measure, 
the one to the other : and sometimes he that 
deals between man and man raiseth his own 



OF VAINGLORY. 197 

credit with both, by pretending greater inter- 
est than he hath in either : and in these, and 
the like kinds, it often fails out, that somewhat 
is produced of nothing ; for lies are sufficient 
to breed opinion, and opinion brings on sub- 
stance. In military commanders and soldiers, 
vainglory is an essential point; for as iron 
sharpens iron, so by glory one courage sharp- 
eneth another. In cases of great enterprise 
upon charge and adventure, a composition of 
glorious natures doth put life into business ; 
and those that are of solid and sober natures 
have more of the ballast than of the sail. In 
fame of learning the flight will be slow with- 
out some feathers of ostentation : " Qui de 
contemnenda gloria libros scribunt, nomen 
suum inscribunt." Socrates, Aristotle, Galen, 
were men full of ostentation : certainly, vain- 
glory heipeth to perpetuate a man's memory ; 
and virtue was never so beholden to human 
nature, as it received its due at the second 
hand. Neither had the fame of Cicero, Sen- 
eca, Plinius Secundus, borne her age so well, 
if it had not been joined with some vanity in 
themselves; like unto varnish, that makes 
ceilings not only shine but last. But all this 
while, when I speak of vainglory, I mean not 
of that property that Tacitus doth attribute to 
Mucianus, " Omnium, quae dixeiat feceratque, 
arte quadam ostentator :" for that proceeds 
not of vanity, but of natural magnanimity and 
discretion ; and, in some persons, is not only 
comely, but gracious : for excusations, ces- 
17* 



198 OF HONOUR AND REPUTATION* 

sions, modesty itself, well governed, are but 
arts of ostentation; and amongst those arts 
there is none better than that which Plinius 
Secundus speakeih of, which is to be liberal 
of praise and commendation to others, in that 
wherein a man's self hath any perfection : for, 
saith Pliny, very wittingly, u In commending 
another you do yourself right; 5 ' for he thaf 
you commend is either superior to you in that 
you commend, or inferior; if he be inferior, 
if he be to be commended, you much more ; 
if he be superior, if he be not to be com- 
mended, you much less. Vainglorious men 
are the scorn of wise men, the admiration of 
fools, the idols of parasites, and the slaves of 
their own vaunts. 



OF HONOUR AND REPUTATION. 

The winning of honour is but the reveal 
ing of a man's virtue and worth without disad- 
vantage ; for some in their actions do woo 
and affect honour and reputation ; which sort 
of men are commonly much talked of, but 
inwardly little admired : and some, contrari- 
wise, darken their virtue in the show of it; 
so as they be undervalued in opinion. If a 
man perform that which hath not been at- 
tempted before, or attempted and given over, 
or hath been achieved, but not with so good 
circumstance, he shall purchase more honour 
than by affecting a matter of greater difficulty 



OP HONOUR AND REPUTATION. 199 

or virtue wherein he is but a follower. If a 
man so temper his actions, as in some * ue of 
them he doth content every faction or c ombi 
nation of people, the music will be the iuller 
A man is an ill husband of his honour thai 
entereth into any action, the failing wherein 
may disgrace him more than the carrying of it 
through can honour him. Honour that is 
gained and broken upon another hath the 
quickest reflection, like diamonds cut with 
fascets ; and, therefore, let a man contend to 
excel any competitors of his honour, in out- 
shooting them, if he can, in their own bow. 
Discreet followers and servants help much to 
reputation : u Omnis fama a domesticis ema- 
nat." Envy, which is the canker of honour, 
is best distinguished by declaring a man's self 
in his ends, rather to seek merit than fame ; 
and by attributing a man's successes rather to 
divine Providence and felicity than to his own 
virtue or policy. The true marshalling of the 
degrees of sovereign honour are these : 5n the 
first place are u conditores imperiorum," foun 
ders of states and commonwealths ; such as 
were Romulus, Cyrus, Caesar, Ottoman, Is- 
mael : in the second place are " legislatores," 
lawgivers ; which are also called second foun- 
ders, or "perpetui principes," because they 
govern by their ordinances after they are 
gone ; such were Lycurgus, Solon. Justinian, 
Edgar, Alphonsus of Castile, the wise, that 
made the i% Siete patridas :" in the third 
place are " liberatores," or " salvatores ;" such 



200 OP HONOJR AND REPUTATION. 

as compound the long miseries of civil wars, 
or deliver their countries from servitude of 
strangers or tyrants ; as Augustus Caesar, Ves- 
pasianus, Aurelianus, Theodoricus, king Hen- 
ry the Seventh of England, king Henry the 
Fourth of France: in the fourth place are 
" propagatores," or " propugnatores imperii," 
such as in honourable wars enlarge their ter- 
ritories, or make noble defence against inva- 
ders : and, in the last place, are " patres 
patriae," which reign justly, and make the 
times good wherein they live ; both which 
last kinds need no examples, they are in such 
number. Degrees of honour in subjects are, 
first, " participes curarum," those upon whom 
princes do discharge the greatest weight of 
their affairs ; their right hands, as we may call 
them : the next are " duces belli," great lead- 
ers; such as*are princes' lieutenants, and do 
them notable services in the wars : the third 
are " gratiosi," favourites ; such as exceed not 
this scantling, to be solace to the sovereign, 
and harmless to the people : and the fourth 
"negotiis pares;" such as have great places 
under princes, and execute their places with 
sufficiency. There is an honour, likewise, 
which may be ranked amongst the greatest, 
which happeneth rarely; that is, of such as 
sacrifice themselves to death or danger for the 
good of their country ; as was M. Regulus, 
and the two Decii. 



OF JUDICATURE. 201 



OF JUDICATURE. 



Judges ought to remember that their office 
is "jus dicere," end not "jus dare;" to inter- 
pret law, and not to make law, or give law; 
else will it be like the authority claimed by 
the church of Rome, which, under pretext of 
exposition of scripture, doth not stick to add 
and alter; and to pronounce that which they 
do not find, and by show of antiquity to intro- 
duce novelty. Judges ought to be more learn- 
ed than witty, more reverend than plausible, 
and more advised than confident. Above all 
things, integrity is their portion and propei 
virtue. " Cursed (saith the law) is he that 
removeth the landmark." The mislayer of a 
mere stone is to blame ; but it is the unjust 
judge that is the capital remover of landmarks, 
when he defineth amiss of land and property. 
One foul sentence doth more hurt than many 
foul examples; for these do but corrupt the 
stream, the other corrupteth the fountain : so 
saith Solomon, " Fons turbatus, et vena cor- 
rupta est Justus cadens in causa sua coram 
adversario." The office of judges may have 
reference unto the parties that sue, unto the 
advocates that plead, unto the clerks and min- 
isters of justice underneath them, and to the 
sovereign or state above them. 

First, for the causes or parties that sue. 
There be (saith the scripture) "that turn 
judgment into wormwood ;" and surely there 



202 OF JUDICATURE. 

be also that turn it into vinegar ; for injustice 
rnaketh it bitter, and delays make it sour. 
The principal duty of a judge is to suppress 
force and fraud ; whereof force is the more 
pernicious when it is open, and fraud when it 
is close and disguised. Add thereto conten- 
tious suits, which ought to be spewed out, as 
the surfeit of courts. A judge ought to pre- 
pare his way to a just sentence, as God useth 
to prepare his way, by raising valleys and 
taking down hills : so when there appeareth 
on either side a high hand, violent prosecu- 
tion, cunning advantages taken, combination, 
power, great counsel, then is the virtue of a 
judge seen to make inequality equal ; that he 
may plant his judgment as upon an even 
ground. " Qui fortiter emungit, elicit sangui- 
nem;" and where the wine-press is hard 
wrought, it yields a harsh wine, that tastes of 
the grape-stone. Judges must beware of hard 
constructions, and strain Jd inferences; for 
there is no worse torture than the torture of 
laws : especially in case of laws penal, they 
ought to have care, that that, which was meant 
for terror, be not turned into rigour : and that 
they bring not upon the people that shower 
whereof the scripture speaketh, u Pluet super 
eos laqueos ; M for penal laws pressed are a 
shower of snares upon the people : therefore, 
let penal laws, if they have been sleepers of 
long, or if they be grown unfit for the present 
time, be by wise judges confined in the exe- 
cution : " Judicis officium est, ut res, ita tern 



OP JUDICATURE. 203 

pora rerum," &c. In causes of life and death, 
judges ought (as far as the lawpermitteth) in 
justice to remember mercy, and to cast a 
severe eye upon the example, but a merciful 
eye upon the person. 

Secondly, for the advocates and counsel that 
plead. Patience and gravity of hearing is an 
essential part of justice ; and an overspeaking 
judge is no well-tuned cymbal. It is no 
grace to a judge first to find that which he 
might have heard in due time from the ba^ ; 
or to show quickness of conceit in cutting off 
evidence or counsel too short, or to prevent 
information by questions, though pertinent. 
The parts of a judge in hearing are four : to 
direct the evidence ; to moderate length, repe- 
tition, or impertinency of speech ; to recapit- 
ulate, select, and collate the material points of 
that which hath been said, and to give the 
rule, or sentence. Whatsoever is above these 
is too much, and proceedeth either of glory 
and willingness to speak, or of impatience 1o 
hear, or of shortness of memory, or of want of a 
staid and equal attention. It is a strange thing 
to see that the boldness of advocates should 
prevail with judges ; whereas they should im- 
itate God, in whose seat they sit ; who repress- 
eth the presumptuous, and giveth grace to 
the modest : but it is more strange, that judges 
should have noted favourites, which cannot but 
cause multiplication of fees, and suspicion of 
by-ways. There is due from the judge to the 
advocate some commendation and gracing, 



204 OF JUDICATURE. 

where causes are well handled and fair piead- 
ed, especially towards the side which obtain- 
eth not: for that upholds in the client the 
reputation of his counsel, and beats down in 
him the conceit of his cause. There is like- 
wise due to the public a civil reprehension of 
advocates, where there appeareth cunning 
counsel, gross neglect, slight information, in- 
discreet pressing, or an overbold defence ; and 
let not the counsel at the bar chop with the 
judge, nor wind himself into the handling of 
the cause anew after the judge hath declared 
his sentence ; but, on the other side, let not 
the judge meet the cause half way, nor give 
occasion to the party to say, his counsel or 
proofs were not heard. 

Thirdly, for that that concerns clerks and 
ministers. The place of justice is a hallowed 
place ; and therefore not only the bench, but 
the footpace and precincts, and purprise there- 
of, ought to be preserved without scandal and 
corruption ; for, certainly, grapes (as the scrip- 
ture saith) " will not be gathered off thorns 
and thistle-s;" neither can Justice yield her 
fruit with sweetness amongst the briers and 
brambles of catching and pulling clerks and 
ministers. The attendance of courts is sub- 
ject to four bad instruments : first, certain per- 
sons that are sowers of suits, which make the 
court swell and the country pine : the second 
sort is of those that engage courts in quarrels 
of jurisdiction, and are not truly " amici cu- 
riae," but u parasiti curiae," in puffing a court 



OF JUDICATURE. 205 

up beyond her bounds for their own scraps and 
advantages : the third sort is of those that may 
be accounted the left hands of courts ; per- 
sons that are full of nimble and sinister tricks 
and shifts, whereby they pervert the plain and 
direct courses of courts, and bring justice into 
oblique lines and labyrinths : and the fourth 
is the poller and exacter of fees ; which justi- 
fies the common resemblance of the courts of 
justice to the bush, whereunto, while the 
sheep flies for defence in weather, he is sure 
to lose part of the fleece. On the other side, 
an ancient clerk, skilful in precedents, wary 
in proceeding, and understanding in the busi- 
ness of the court, is an excellent figure of a 
court, and doth many times point the way to 
the judge himself. 

Fourthly, for that which may concern the 
sovereign and estate. Judges ought, above 
all, to remember the conclusion of the Roman 
twelve tables, " Salus populi suprema lex ;" 
and to know that laws, except they be in 
order to that end, are but things captious, and 
oracles not well inspired : therefore it is a 
happy thing in a state, when kings and states 
do often consult with judges ; and, again, when 
judges do often consult with the king and 
state ; the one, where there is matter of law 
intervenient in business of state; the other, 
when there is some consideration of state in- 
tervenient in matter of law ; for many times 
the things deduced to judgment may be 
u meum" and u tuum," when the reason and 
18 



206 OP ANGER. 

consequence thereof may trench to point of 
estate : I call matter of estate, not only the 
parts of sovereignty, but whatsoever intro- 
duced any great alteration or dangerous pre- 
cedent; or coneerneth manifestly any great 
portion of people : and let no man weakly 
conceive, that just laws and true policy have 
any antipathy ; for they are like the spirits 
and sinews, that one moves with the other. 
Let judges also remember, that Solomon's 
throne was supported by lions on both sides : 
let them be lions, but yet lions under the 
throne : being circumspect, that they do not 
check or oppose any points of sovereignty. 
Let not judges also be so ignorant of their own 
right, as to think there is not left them, as a 
principal part of their office, a wise use and 
application of laws ; for they may remember 
what the apostle saith of a greater law than 
theirs ; " Nos scimus quia lex bona est, modo 
quis ea utatur legitime.'' 



OF ANGER. 



To seek to extinguish anger utterly is but a 
bravery of the Stoics. We have better ora- 
cles : " Be angry, but sin not : let not the sun 
go down upon your anger." Anger must be 
limited and confined, both in race and in time. 
We will first speak how the natural inclina- 
tion and habit, " to be angry," may be attemper- 
ed and calmed ; secondly, how the particular 



OF ANGER. 207 

•notions of anger may be repressed, or, at 
least, refrained from doing mischief ; thirdly, 
how to raise anger, or appease anger in an- 
other. 

For the first, there is no other way but to 
meditate and ruminate well upon the effects of 
anger, how it troubles man's life: and the best 
time to do this, is to look back upon anger 
when the fit is thoroughly over. Seneca saith 
well, " that anger is like rain, which breaks 
itself upon that it falls." The scripture ex- 
horteth us u to possess our souls in patience ;" 
whosoever k out of patience, is out of posses- 
sion of his soul. Men must not turn bees : 

" Animasqua in vulnere ponunt." 

Anger is certainly a kind of baseness ; as it 
appears well in the weakness of those subjects 
in whom it reigns, children, women, old folks, 
sick folks. Only men must beware that they 
carry their anger rather with scorn than with 
fear; so that they may seem rather to be 
above the injury than below it ; which is a 
thing easily done, if a man will give law to 
himself in it. 

For the second point, the causes and mo- 
tives of anger are chiefly three : first, to be 
sensible of hurt ; for no man is angry that feels 
not himself hurt ; and, therefore, tender and 
delicate persons must needs be oft angry, they 
have so many things to trouble them, which 
more robust natures have little sense of : the 
next is, the apprehension and construction of 



208 OP ANGER. 

the injury offered to be, in the circumstances 
thereof, full of contempt ; for contempt is that 
which putteth an edge upon anger, as much 
or more than the hurt itself; and, therefore, 
when men are ingenious in picking out cir- 
cumstances of contempt, they do kindle their 
anger much : lastly, opinion of the touch of a 
man's reputation doth multiply and sharpen 
anger ; wherein the remedy is, that a man 
should have, as Gonsalvo was wont to say, 
"telam honoris crassiorem." But in all re- 
frainings of anger, it is the best remedy to win 
time, and to make a man's self believe that the 
opportunity of his revenge is not yet come ; 
but that he foresees a time for it, and so to 
still himself in the mean time, and reserve it. 

To contain anger from mischief, though it 
take hold of a man, there be two things 
whereof you must have special caution : the 
one of extreme bitterness of words, especially 
if they be aculeate and proper ; for " comrau- 
nia maledicta" are nothing so much; and 
again, that in anger a man reveal no secrets ; 
for that makes him not fit for society : the 
other, that you do not peremptorily break off 
in any business in a fit of anger ; but howso- 
ever you show bitterness, do not act any thing 
that is not revocable. 

For raising and appeasiag anger in another, 
it is done chiefly by choosing of times, when 
men are frowardest and worst disposed, to in- 
cense them; again, by gathering (as was 
touched before) all that you can find out to 



OF VICISSITUDE OF THINGS. 209 

aggravate the contempt : and the two reme- 
dies are by the contraries : the former to take 
good times, when first to relate to a man an 
angry business, for the first impression is 
much ; and the other is, to sever, as much as 
may be, the construction of the injury from the 
point of contempt ; imputing it to misunder 
standing, fear, passion, or what you will. 



OF VICISSITUDE OF THINGS. 

Solomon saith, " there is no new thing upon 
the earth :" so that as Plato had an imagina- 
tion that all knowledge was but remembrance ; 
so Solomon giveth his sentence, " that all 
novelty is but oblivion ;" whereby ycu may 
see, that the river of Lethe runneth as well 
above ground as below. There is an abstruse 
astrologer that saith, if it were not for two 
things that are constant, (the one is, that the 
fixed stars ever stand at like distance one from 
another, and never come nearer together, nor 
go farther asunder ; the other, that the diurnal 
motion perpetually keepeth time,) no individ- 
ual would last one moment : certain it is, that 
matter is in a perpetual flux, and never at a 
stay. The great winding sheets that bury all 
things in oblivion are two ; deluges and earth- 
quakes. As for conflagrations and great 
droughts, they do not merely dispeople, but 
destroy. Phaeton's car went but a day ; and 
the three years' drought, in the time of Elias. 
X 



210 OF VICISSITUDE OP THINGS. 

was but particular, and left people alive. As 
for the great burnings by lightnings, which are 
often in the West Indies, they are but narrow ; 
but in the other two destructions, by deluge 
and earthquake, it is farther to be noted, 
that the remnant of people which happen 
to be reserved are commonly ignorant and 
mountainous people, that can give no accoup* 
of the time past ; so that the oblivion is all on 
as if none had been left. If you consider 
well of the people of the West Indies, it is 
very probable that they are a newer or a 
younger people than the people of the old 
world ; and it is much more likely that the 
destruction that hath heretofore been there, 
was not by earthquakes, (as the ^Egyptian 
priest told Solon, concerning the island of At- 
lantis, that it was swallowed by an earthquake,) 
but rather that it was desolated by a particular 
deluge : for earthquakes are seldom in those 
parts : but on the other side, they have such 
pouring rivers, as the rivers of Asia and Africa 
and Europe are but brooks to them. Their 
Andes, likewise, or mountains, are far higher 
than those with us ; whereby it seems, that 
the remnants of generations of men were in 
such a particular deluge saved. As for the 
observation that Machiavel hath, that the 
jealousy of sects doth much extinguish the 
memory of things; traducing Gregory the 
Great, that he did what in him lay to extin- 
guish all heathen antiquities; I do not find 
that those zeals do any great effects, nor last 



OF VICISSITUDE OF THiNGS. 211 

long ; as it appeared in the succession of 
Sabinian, who did revive the former anti- 
quities. 

The vicissitude, or mutations, in the supe- 
rior globe are no fit matter for this present 
argument. It may be Plato's great year, if 
the world should last so long, would have some 
effect, not in renewing the state of like indi- 
viduals, (for that is the fume of those thai 
conceive the celestial bodies have more accu- 
rate influences upon these things below than 
indeed they have,) but in gross. Comets, out 
of question, have likewise power and effect 
over the gross and mass of things : but they 
are rather gazed upon, and waited upon in 
their journey, than wisely observed in theii 
effects ; especially in their respective effects ; 
that is, what kinS of comet for magnitude, 
colour, version of the beams, placing in the 
region of heaven, or lasting, produceth what 
kind of effects. 

There is a toy, which I have heard, and I 
would not have it given over, but waited upon 
a little. They say it is observed in the Low 
Countries, (I know not in what part,) that 
every five-and-thirty years the same kind and 
suit of years and weathers come about again ; 
as great frosts, great wet, great droughts, warm 
winters, summers with little heat, and the like ; 
and they call it the prime : it is a thing I do 
the rather mention, because, computing back- 
wards, I have found some concurrence. 



212 OF VICISSITUDE OP THINGS. 

But to leave these points of nature, and to 
come to men. The great vicissitude of things 
amongst men is the vicissitude of sects and 
religions ; for those orbs rule in men's minds 
most. The true religion is built upon the 
rock ; the rest are tossed upon the waves of 
time. To speak, therefore, of the causes of 
new sects, and to give some counsel concern- 
ing them, as far as the weakness of human 
judgment can give stay to so great revolutions. 

When the religion formerly received is rent 
by discords, and when the holiness of the pro- 
fessors of religion is decayed and full of scan- 
dal, and withal the times be stupid, ignorant, 
and barbarous, you may doubt the spring- 
ing up of a new sect : if then, also, there 
should arise any extravagant and strange spirit 
to make himself author thereof: all which 
points held when Mahomet published his law. 
If a new sect have not two properties, fear it 
not, for it will not spread : the one is the sup- 
planting, or the opposing of authority estab- 
lished ; for nothing is more popular than that ; 
the other is the giving license to pleasures and 
a voluptuous life : for as for speculative here- 
sies, (such as were in ancient times the All- 
ans, and now the Arminians,) though they 
work mightily upon men's wits, yet they do 
not produce any great alteration in states, 
except it be by the help of civil occasions. 
There be three manner of plantations of new 
sects ; by the power of signs and miracles ; 



OF VICISSITUDE OF THINGS. 213 

by the eloquence and wisdom of speech and 
persuasion ; and by the sword. For martyr- 
doms, I reckon them amongst miracles, be- 
cause they seem to exceed the strength of 
human nature : and I may do the like of 
superlative and admirable holiness of life. 
Surely there is no better way to stop the rising 
of new sects and schisms than to reform 
abuses; to compound the smaller diffeiences; 
to proceed mildly, and not with sanguinary 
persecutions ; and rather to take off the prin- 
cipal authors, by winning and advancing them, 
then to enrage them by violence and bitter- 
ness. 

The changes and vicissitudes in wars are 
many, but chiefly in three things; in the 
seats or stages of the war, in the weapons, and 
in the manner of the conduct. Wars, in an- 
cient time, seemed more to move from east to 
west; for the Persians, Assyrians, Arabians, 
Tartars, (which were the invaders,) were all 
eastern people. It is true, the Gauls were 
western ; but we read but of two incursions 
of theirs ; the one to Gallo-Graecia, the other 
to Rome : but east and west have no certain 
points of heaven ; and no more have the wars, 
either from the east or west, any certainty of 
observation : but north ana south are fixed ; 
and it hath seldom or never been seen that the 
far southern people have invaded the north- 
ern, but contrariwise ; whereby it is manifest 
that the northern tract of the world is in na- 
ture the more martial region : be it in respect 



214 OP VICISSITUDE OF THINGS. 

of the stars of that hemisphere, or of the great 
continents that are upon the north ; whereas 
the south part, for aught that is known, is 
almost all sea ; or (which is most apparent) 
of the cold of the northern parts, which is that 
which, without aid of discipline, doth make the 
bodies hardest, and the courage warmest. 

Upon the breaking and shivering of a great 
state and empire, you may be sure to have 
wars ; for great empires, while they stand, du 
enervate and destroy the forces of the natives 
which they have subdued, resting upon their 
own protecting forces ; and then, when they 
fail also, all goes to ruin, and they become a 
prey ; so it was in the decay of the Roman 
empire, and likewise in the empire of Al- 
maigne, after Charles the Great, every bird 
taking a feather ; and were not unlike to be- 
fall to Spain if it should break. The great ac- 
cessions and unions of kingdoms do likewise 
stir up wars : for when a state grows to an 
overpower, it is like a great flood that will be 
sure to overflow ; as it hath been seen in the 
states of Rome, Turkey, Spain, and others. 
Look when the world hath fewest barbarous 
people, but such as commonly will not marry, 
or generate, except they know means to live, 
(as it is almost every where at this day, ex- 
cept Tartary,) there is no danger of inunda- 
tions of people: but when there be great 
shoals of people which go on to populate, 
without foreseeing means of life and sustenta- 
tion, it is of necessity that once in an age or 



OF VICISSITUDE OF THINGS. 215 

two they discharge a portion of their people 
upon other nations, which the ancient north- 
ern people were wont to do by lot ; casting 
lots what part should stay at home, and what 
should seek their fortunes. When a warlike 
state grows soft and effeminate, they may be 
sure of a war : for commonly such states are 
grown rich in the time of their degenerating ; 
and so the prey inviteth, and their decay in 
valour encourageth a war. 

As for the weapons, it hardly falleth under 
rule and observation : yet we see even they 
have returns and vicissitudes ; for certain it is, 
that ordnance was known in the city of Oxy- 
draces, in India; and was that which the 
Macedonians called thunder and lightning, 
and magic ; and it is well known that the use 
of ordnance hath been in China above two 
thousand years. The conditions of weapons, 
and their improvements are, first, the fetching 
afar off; for that outruns the danger, as it is 
seen in ordnance and muskets : secondly, the 
strength of the percussion ; wherein likewise 
ordnance do exceed all arietations and ancient 
inventions : the third is, the commodious use of 
them ; as that they may serve in all weathers, 
that the carriage may be light and manageable, 
and the like. 

For the conduct of the war : at the first, 
men rested extremely upon number ; they did 
put the wars likewise upon main force and 
valour, pointing days for pitched fields, and so 
trying it out upon an even match ; and thev 



216 OP FAME. 

were more ignorant in ranging and arraying 
their battles. After they grew to rest upon 
number, rather competent than vast, they 
grew to advantages of place, cunning diver- 
sions, and the like; and they grew more skil- 
ful in the ordering of their battles. 

In the youth of a state arms do flourish ; in 
the middle age of a state, learning ; and then 
both of them together for a time ; in the de- 
clining age of a state, mechanical arts and 
merchandise. Learning hath its infancy, when 
it is but beginning, and almost childish ; then 
its youth, when it is luxuriant and juvenile ; 
then its strength of years, when it is solid 'and 
reduced; and, lastly, its old age, when it 
waxeth dry and exhaust ; but it is not good 
to look too long upon these turning wheels of 
vicissitude, lest we become giddy : as for the 
philology of them, that is but a circle of tales, 
and therefore not fit for this writing. 



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